On Thu, Jun 10, 2010 at 9:27 AM, n8deu <[email protected]> wrote: >
> James, I must apologize here and read closer. My response was > in respect reading a ~15 second delay in the original post which > triggered my reaction. It was the original post by KC8RYW and > chopped off in susequent posts that referenced the following: No need to apologize. I saw the original suggestion of 15 second, and that you picked up on the problem with using such a large delay value. > How are you going to identify the low power tracker? I think a low > power tracker would already be using WIDE1-1 for its first hop. By definition, only low powered trackers needing help from fill-in digipeaters use a path of WIDE1-1 as a first hop. Of course in reality people have screwed that up, and people use WIDE1-1 on 50 watt mobiles, or from airborne platforms that obviously do not need help from fill-in digipeaters. > If a "fill-in" digi digipeats anything other than a missed WIDE1-1 on > the first hop it may add additional congestion under some conditions, > because it cannot hear that the station may have already raised 2 > distance wide area digipeaters. Well, again by definition a fill-in digipeater only acts upon the WIDE1-1 alias (and probably it's own callsign). A fill-in digipeater will not act upon WIDE2-2 or WIDE2-1, or anything other than WIDE1-1. > I am certainly in favor of a "fill-in" that does not digipeat a WIDE1-1 > hop if a WIDEn-N or other digi has already digipeated the first hop. Which is what we would be looking to create. > How do you propose a smart "fill-in" would properly select a low > powered tracker from a high powered station using WIDE2-2 for > their path? As defined above, a station asking for a hop of WIDE2-2 would not be acted upon by the fill-in digipeater. WIDE2-2 is not WIDE1-1, and the fill-in only acts upon WIDE1-1. > A band opening would be an intesting event if a smart "fill-in" acts > on the first hop of a WIDE2-2 path. This would be the case of a fill-in digipeater being misconfigured, and rather than being a fill-in digipeater, it would be configured as a full digipeater. > If a DX station raised all the smart "fill-in" stations under this scenario > I think RF bandwidth would be wasted on a wider scale on distant networks. Yes, indeed you would be wasting bandwidth. However look at it this way... the way that a properly implemented network should work. (All of the issues you have raised rely upon bad timing choices, or improperly implemented digipeater settings.) Let's say that we have 3 main digipeaters that act upon WIDE2-2, WIDE2-1, and WIDE1-1 (a common setup for a digipeater that limits the number of hops to 2 or less. Let's also say that we have a 3 more fill-in digipeaters within this network in places where there are spots that have less than stellar RX coverage. (The real reason to put fill-in digipeaters out in the field). A regular station running WIDE2-2 would only trigger the main digipeaters. Perhaps only one on the first hop and the others on the subsequent hop, or perhaps 2 or 3 on the first hop request, depending upon topology. A low powered station running WIDE1-1,WIDE2-1 might trigger a fill-in digipeater on the first hop, and then one or more main digipeaters on the second hop. It might also trigger a main digipeater on the first hop if within range. It might possibly trigger one or more fill-in digipeaters, and one or more main digipeaters on that first hop as well. It all depends upon who can hear that station. Now replace the regular fill-in digipeaters with SMART fill-in digipeaters. If the low powered station can only be heard by one of the SMART fill-ins, the fill-in will wait a second or two, and not hearing a main digipeater reacting, it digipeats the packet, boosting it to the main digipeater(s). If the low powered station is heard by a SMART fill-in, and a main digipeater, the main digipeater digipeats the packet. The SMART digipeater hears that digipeated packet, and drops the request in its queue. Now let's think about a balloon tracker flying over this network using a path of WIDE1-1,WIDE2-1 (Which unfortunately some groups feel is not only acceptable, but necessary). EVERY digipeater, main and fill-in will hear the initial packet. EVERY digipeater will act. If the fill-in digipeaters are the SMART version, only the 3 main digipeaters respond, while the SMART fill-in digipeaters hold off for that second or two. They obviously hear the packets from the main digipeaters, and drop their digipeat request. The balloon concept would be similar to a high powered tracker running WIDE1-1 as a first hop, and hitting many digipeaters at once, or a band opening where propagation enhancements make many digipeaters hear the packet. Remember that the fill-in digipeater concept is designed to help onlythose that need a boost. The current hardware available ALWAYS helps (only WIDE1-1 requests), whether it is needed or not. Adding the SMART routine in there allows the fill-in to boost only the stations that NEED help, and stay quiet when they don't need help. I hope that helps get the concept straightened out. It's difficult to make decisions on how new algorithms will integrate into a system when you don't have a firm grasp on the current algorithms and how they work. James VE6SRV
