On Jan 20, 2010, at 2:14 PM, Catrina White wrote:
Another newbie question for all of you:
I wanted to perform an echo test, and was wondering if it is a
universal thing such as: repeater name (space) E
for instance: KI6JKA_E would perform an echo test to find out if I
am making it into the system?
The other question I have, is it necessary when calling a specific
station (I have an IC 91AD) and I have noticed in some cases there
is a / before a call sign. is that what typically is supossed to be
there? Or is that only specific cases?
Wish there was a more user friendly manual which explains why the /
is there or absent.
Thank you for answering my questions!
CAT
KG6PPA
Cat,
What you are dealing with is two different addressing schemes,
overloaded on one another, and not well integrated.
Native D-STAR does not have any notion of "linking" -- it uses
callsign routing.
There are two choices for the UR field in callsign routing (under the
current design):
If you are calling an individual station, you put their callsign in
the UR: field, so if you want to call your friend "K6XYZ" on repeater
KI6JKA B, then you would set up as follows:
UR: K6XYZ
MY: KG6PPA
RPT1: KI6JKA B
RPT2: KI6JKA G
What will happen then, is the repeater KI6JKA B will repeat your
signal from its controller to a computer with the gateway software
(KI6JKA G). The gateway software will lookup the location of K6XYZ
and relay your signal to the gateway attached to the repeater where
K6XYZ was last heard. No link is established, your signal is just
relayed over the Internet, transmission by transmission.
K6XYZ would swap the UR/MY above and put his local RPT1 and RPT2 in
his radio and could likewise reply to you. (There is a button on the
radio to do this automatically.)
The second case, is you just want to talk to anyone on a specific
repeater. For example, if you just wanted to ask someone in Salt Lake
City, UT how the skiing is today, you would put that repeater's
callsign in the UR field, prefixed with a /. That repeater is KF6RAL
B (70cm) or KF6RAL C (2m) or KF6RAL A (23cm). So you setup as follows:
UR: /KF6RALB
MY: KG6PPA
RPT1: KI6JKA B
RPT2: KI6JKA G
This tells the gateway to relay your signal specifically to the
repeater KF6RAL B (the space gets pushed out because there are only 8
characters in the callsign field). This is just like the previous
example, no link is created, only your signal is relayed and someone
replying to you must either put your callsign in the UR field or put /
KI6JKAB in the UR field (either will get the signal back out the
repeater you called from).
The second system is based on "bolt on" software from AA4RC called
DPLUS. It creates links based on psuedo-callsigns, these links relay
everything heard on one repeater to the other and vice versa. Using
KF6RAL as the example again. You initiate the link using:
UR: KF6RALBL
MY: KG6PPA
RPT1: KI6JKA B
RPT2: KI6JKA G
The B again is pushed left by the L (for "Link") because of the 8
character limit.
If a callsign is less than 7 characters your radio will put the spaces
in for you. If it has a designator like "KF6RAL B", you must space
fill to put the "B" in the 8th position. E.g, for me, you would put in
K7VE P (for Portable), with 3 spaces between the E and P, but to
call my main callsign you just put in "K7VE" --- anything you put into
the 8 characters has meaning, so if you put in "K7VE !" (one space)
that is not going to get to me, since the 1 makes the callsign unique.
Oh, yeah, when your are done with the link, set the UR to something
with "U" (for unlink) in the 8th position, like UR: " U"
Hope this helps.
John D. Hays
Amateur Radio Station K7VE
PO Box 1223
Edmonds, WA 98020-1223 VOIP/SIP: j...@hays.org
Email: j...@hays.org
