One of the shortcomings of the linking arrangement - the near station has no idea whether the far end station is linked or not unless the near station has internet access. The near station cannot interfere with a contact on the far end or transmit over the far end station. If the far end is busy the near end will get RPT* or RPT? in their display letting them know that the far end was busy (call sign routed calls). The near end station can cause the far end repeater to transmit during gaps or pauses between transmission. When the near end does successfully transmit to the far end, then near end station will get UR* in their display letting them know they reached their destination.
The dashboard, one of the niceties of Dplus will tell you via internet, the status of the far end repeater: https://k5ctx.dstargateway.org/ Reflector calls routed to CQCQCQ and RPT2 set to Gateway always display RPT? because as far as DSTAR (not Dplus) is concerned the call never reached destination. steve On Wed, Aug 11, 2010 at 9:43 AM, kg8iu <jpyle...@gmail.com> wrote: > Fascinating. And very, very informative. > > Is there any way for a DStar user, either RF or Dongle, to determine the > link status of a far-end repeater node? >