[chirp_devel] Receive only channels

[jon]

On Tue, 2014-08-26 at 15:09 -0700, Dan Smith wrote:
Hi Jon,
> 
> 
> > I found out how to program receive only channels with CHIRP, but I
had
> > to google for it.
> > 
> > Duplex="off" to me says simplex !
> > 
> > Would it not make more sense for the "off" option to read something
more
> > meaningful to users "NO_TX" or "RX_ONLY" for example.
> 
> Yeah, maybe. A duplex of None means no duplex.
Yes and "no duplex" = simplex !  All that theory I swallowed made me
very literal :-)

It always was the wrong word anyway. Except for the very few handsets
that really can transmit and receive simultaneously, mostly it is not
duplex, it is simply "split".

Google dictionary.
du·plex
"(of a communications system, computer circuit, etc.) allowing the
transmission of two signals simultaneously in opposite directions"

The key word is simultaneously.  

It is more normal to have a TX and RX frequency and simply default to
them being identical. The idea of the offset being a meaningful value
was OK when (and only when) it was always the same for any given
country. These days it is not true. The UK has at least 3 offsets in use
in the amateur bands alone - PMR is often just a mess :-)

Personally I would re-structure the GUI to have a TX and RX frequency
and drop the entire duplex section, make an TX frequency of 0 be "no
transmit". That would be a large change though and might just be my own
personal preference :-)


> The point was to
> interpret the duplex field as a command, along the lines of "what
> happens when I transmit". Many radios overload their duplex
> field/setting/indicator in a similar way.
> 
> Changing it now would be a bit of a problem, because people have CSV
> files out there with "off" and even if we supported that on read,users
> with new versions of CHIRP would create invalid CSV files for users of
> older versions. If you want to write a patch to handle it asgracefully
> as possible, we can certainly discuss it.

Can't you simply change the text in the GUI and leave the the token (or
whatever moniker the language you write in calls it) as "off"  

Or another way of looking at it the back end continues as before (for
compatibility with CSV files etc) but the front end changes "off" to to
something more meaningful for display? 

Thanks,
Jon