John D. Hays wrote: > This message is not advocating the interconnection, it is merely to > point out that the ID argument is not valid. A given gateway operator > may have other reasons for not wishing interconnection, and it is within > their rights to deny it.
I'm not advocating or not the interconnection either, but I think the argument people are making isn't one of "legal ID", it's one of "we're losing a feature" when we interconnect. Why upgrade to a digital system that gives you the callsign of the operator on the far end, if someone's just going to inject analog signals that have no ID associated with them, or worse a "fake" callsign that's always the same... into that nice, advanced, digital system with the neat feature? That's backwards thinking, not forwards. In other words... once you have a digital system that does these things... "Who cares?" about analog? (This coming from a guy who also operates 10 analog repeaters... analog has its place, but connecting it to the D-STAR network, is just kinda... dumb.) That's the rub, methinks... not that someone can't legally ID the signal. Voice works just fine for that, and always will. You can even ID an analog repeater legally that way here in the U.S. ... "This is WY0X via the WY0X repeater." on a repeater without an automatic ID'er... is perfectly legal here. I don't RECOMMEND it, but it's legal. Right up until the point where some noise or grunge opens the repeater's receiver some day when no one's listening... Nate WY0X
