On Fri, 15 May 2009 23:28:54 -0400, "Woodrick, Ed" <[email protected]> said: > > > Easy solution, stop callsign routing. Use repeater linking instead. > Problem solved. > > Ed WA4YIH
That'd be silly. If I want to KNOW for sure the call made it to the other side, and get a RESPONSE from the network that says so, the ONLY option for that is callsign routing. The day D-Plus linking is CONFIRMED with a "UR" back on the radio, you'd have an argument. Until then, they're both viable, and only one is guaranteed to show up at the other end. Try listening in on on a Reflector-based D-Plus Net sometime and see how many stations double and can't figure out that's what happened. It's REALLY obvious when you listen/watch for it. Another common mistake on Reflectors: People don't listen for AT LEAST THREE MINUTES before transmitting after linking in. D-Plus is slightly busted in that it can't "pick up in the middle of a stream" when you link your local repeater into a Reflector and there's already a transmission taking place. You hear NOTHING. Since the timeout timers on the repeaters are 3 minutes... the only GUARANTEED way the "frequency is clear" after you link into a Reflector, is to WAIT 3 MINUTES. No one does it. You hear people bust into on-going QSO's on REF001C *ALL THE TIME* because of this. It's not fully-baked yet. Callsign routing is. As I've said before, I use both. But your zealoutry (you've made this argument before, and don't seem to care about the above-mentioned before BUGS in it) about it is misplaced. D-Plus isn't "right" yet. If Robin can't find a way to have it respond with "UR" properly, it'll NEVER be right. It's a hackish add-on that works, but isn't engineered as well as the VERY VENERABLE callsign routing. For one repeater to one repeater "linking" it's mainly attractive to people because it requires less brainpower to operate, and considering that callsign routing doesn't really require much brainpower, it's kinda funny really. How hard is it to keep your regular contact's repeaters in a memory channel as a "/repeater" route? Not hard at all. The other major draw is Reflectors, but as pointed out above, the way it's implemented today, people won't wait long enough (one full transmission's maximum time) to see if the frequency is clear when they link in. I hear it all the time on busy Reflectors. The other thing you hear CONSTANTLY on a busy Reflector is whole transmissions disappearing and people saying, "Not sure where you went, but we didn't hear any of that transmission, Bob." No one has done an adequate investigation into the cause. I'm not anti-DPlus or pro-callsign routes or anything like that. But I'm a support tech who always calls it like it is... D-Plus linking has problems still. I think also from a human-training point of view, it adds confusion. People start to think the ONLY way to call another system is via D-Plus commands, and that's just not accurate. If they want to KNOW their call went through, they really should be using callsign routes and understanding them. Is it nice to have Dongle users and Reflectors, sure. Is D-Plus the answer to all routing/calling for everything? Not yet. Not by a long shot. Nate WY0X -- Nate Duehr [email protected]
