[drats_users] gps ???

[Dan Smith]

> I tested this on my XP machine with the same results. I did not get a
> chance to test simplex, but I was only two miles away from the repeater
> and I was never identified with my call sign by drats.

For what it's worth, proximity to the repeater really has no correlation
to whether or not you are getting in cleanly.  Multipath can completely
trash the signal even if you have plenty of it.

The other thing to remember is that the quality of the voice portion of
the D-STAR signal tells you absolutely nothing about the quality of the
data part.  The voice stream has a huge FEC stream to back it up and
"fix" it on the other end.  The data stream has no such help and only
one bad byte every second will make it nearly useless.

When we used to do exercises and training here locally, we would do so
in a meeting room at the local fire station.  Even being ten feet or
less from each other using handhelds, we would get plenty of corruption
of the data signal making it very challenging at times to get anything done.

Just something to keep in mind :)

-- 
Dan Smith
www.danplanet.com
KK7DS