That is by far the best explanation I have read lately.
There are so many myths flying around. It gets really
confusing but you just cleaned it up a bit more for me. I
will make those changes and make MYCALL the same in all
radios. I will leave my DVAP and Hotspot as is.
Thanks, John.
73,
Carl
On 8/10/2010 2:39 PM, John D. Hays wrote:
By not understanding call sign routing there has been a
trend to assign too many radio specific "initials" by
D-STAR users.
A station has *one* callsign, in Carl's case that is
W8KRF. All radios; handheld, mobile, base, etc. should
have the MYCALL set to "W8KRF" (blank initial). Having
radio specific callsigns breaks simple callsign routing.
The only exceptions to this should be, two radios
operating on different repeaters/frequencies *at the same
time* or if you have a couple of ID-1s and want to have a
special callsign for "digital data" (128K) and one for
digital voice. All other initials "P", "M", "H", ... are
both unnecessary, but also counter productive. (A club
with multiple radios operating in network fashion is a
possible exception.)
If you run a Hotspot and/or DVAP they should probably have
their own initials for the DPLUS network, as they don't
provide callsign routing anyway.
/So why do I say that additional initials are not only
unnecessary but probably bad?/
Let's say I want to contact Carl, and I don't know what
Reflector or Repeater he is on, nor which radio he is
using, with callsign routing I can simply set "URCALL" to
"W8KRF" and if all of his radios use the same "MYCALL" my
signal will be routed to the last repeater he was heard
on, regardless of whether he was on his handheld, mobile,
or base. This makes it very simple to find someone (and
quite frankly the feature of D-STAR that I think is
unique, linking is just like analog linking). If, on the
other hand, Carl has "A" assigned to his handheld, "M" to
his mobile, "J" to his second mobile, I have to set
"URCALL" to each of these in succession to try to find
him, assuming I even know what initials he is using.
(Each callsign and initial combination is a unique address
on the D-STAR network.) -- If you want to let the world
know which radio you are using, put it in the short
message or the 4 letter comment.
Callsign routing probably would have gained traction
earlier if the updates to gateways weren't so slow, but
ircddb has solved this problem if gateway owners will just
install it. (http://www.ircddb.net) I have observed
updates for a station moving to a new repeater completing
before PTT is released by the operator. With these rapid
updates, you just have to key up on a new repeater and you
can continue your callsign routed qso fairly seamlessly.
--
John D. Hays
Amateur Radio Station K7VE <http://k7ve.org>
PO Box 1223
Edmonds, WA 98020-1223
VOIP/SIP: [email protected] <sip:[email protected]>
