[drats_users] Lessons Learned?

[DESloan at aol.com]

THANKS Dan. All very good points that I will forward on to our RACES  staff.
 
 
In a message dated 1/30/2010 5:24:56 P.M. Mountain Standard Time,  
dsmith at danplanet.com writes:

> The  El Paso County RACES is going to be using D-Rats for an upcoming
> 5  county exercise. This will be the first time for us to use D-Rats. We
>  have been working on training our members on the use of D-Rats. We
>  expect to send about 400 messages in a 5 hour period during both the
>  functional and full scale exercise. What I am looking for is any  lessons
> learned by other groups or individuals that we could include  in out
> training to help prevent us in making the same mistake. So, let  me hear
> from you as to what you have found worked well and what did  not work for
> you.

Definitely good to get feedback from the  others, but I'll throw in a few
things:

1. Try to avoid using the  channel for voice as well.  If you must, call
for a  couple minutes of quiet to transfer a batch of messages/files.
2. Use the  ping function to test connectivity before sending a file or
message to another station.
3. If you can go simplex, do it, as it's much  faster.  The repeaters
guarantee that you have the  "hidden transmitter" problem every single
time, so simplex is  better if you can do it.
4. Use message routing to hop through an  intermediate station if you
can't directly contact the  destination.  Either use gratuitous paths,
or just let  the intermediate station figure it out.
5. If you have a lot of messages  coming to a single station (say, the
County EOC), you can use  two radios on one station to provide two
paths in.   Everyone from the east can use VHF, everyone from the west
can  use UHF, etc.

-- 
Dan Smith
dsmith#danplanet.com,  s/#/@/
www.danplanet.com
KK7DS
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