[drats_users] WIKI & FAQ

[Arnold Harding]

OK, for the WIKI, this would be nice.  My comments for it below:

> It's been discussed here a couple of times, but not formally
> documented anywhere permanent that I know of.
>
> Here is some explanation of it, grafted from the list archives:
>
> | The pipeline settings shouldn't really affect how things go across
> | the gateway, but they do affect how quickly the file transfer 
> logic
> | can recover from a bit of corruption, and how long your radio
> | transmits before asking the remote end for an acknowledgment.
> |
> | The "block size" setting defines the largest chunk of data that 
> will
> | be sent with a single checksum.  If you have a single bit error,
> | this is the minimum amount of data that will have to be
> | retransmitted.  The larger this value, the less overhead, but the
> | more you have to retransmit in the case of a bit error.
> |
> | The "pipeline blocks" setting controls how many of the above 
> blocks
> | get sent at a time before asking the remote end for a status 
> report.
> | If "block size" is 256 and "pipeline blocks" is 4, then each time 
> we
> | transmit, we will send 4x256 = 1024 bytes of data.  When those are
> | sent, the receiving side responds with a list of blocks it 
> received.
> | If only two of the four were clean, then the sending side sends 
> the
> | original two blocks, plus two more (since the pipeline is set to 
> 4)
> | and the process repeats.
>
> Note that the "pipeline blocks" setting is the window size.  I 
> really
> need to rename that in the UI.  If the above makes sense perhaps we
> can post it on the wiki somewhere for future generations.
>
Unless it's changed in the 0.3 version, the actual title in the first 
'archive' paragraph should be "Transfers" since that's what needs to 
get clicked on in the 0.2 versions.  I understand it completely.  Is 
it really possible to make 32 blocks of 4096 bytes?  I'd really be 
pushing my luck with those settings!

What about Tuning?  I don't know about Warmup, and I don't understand 
why "Force transmission delay" can have a negative number, or what the 
number does at all (seconds? ms? us?).

In the FAQ section "What baud rate should I choose?", the ID-1 has a 
baud rate of 19200 (and the port is determined by the USB software). 
I know not many of you might use an ID-1 for low speed data, but it 
was one of the better choices for our use.

I noticed on the Ratflector web page, sending a Ping to CQCQCQ will 
find out who is online.  Does this work at all on RF?

Arnold
KQ6DI