[drats_users] D-RATS email - I think I understand

[Debbie Fligor]

Will,
It looks like you've pretty much got it for the RF side.

One of the things I do for testing is to pretend that the internet is the radio to radio link.  

If you've successfully used D-RATS over RF once, you know you've got the repeater part working (and the rig to d-rats part). then get the setup bugs worked out of making email forwarding work over the internet -- you'll still need someone else to let you send email, but you wont tie up your local repeater to do so (or tie up their radio side).  There are a lot of people that sit on the reflectors and would be happy to give you access.  as far as the D-RATS software goes, a "net" connection isn't really different than a "serial" connection from the end user point of view. forwarding is done by D-RATS callsign, not the one programmed into the radio, etc.  For learning the interface and how things like file transfers and sending email work, internet is just as good as RF.

Then, once you know the email basics and how to work them, setup someone to test with over RF, so you can find tune the transfer settings for your repeater/gateway to REF or other repeater/gateway pair, and then you know it's all working.


I know that the beta version for the DV dongle software supports D-RATS, but the b2 version that was available for Mac didn't work well (it would hang after a minute or two).  the b4 version is out for Mac now, and I haven't tried it again to see if it's better or not yet.  Robin's got a lot going on, and hasn't gotten new versions out for DV Dongle out too often for a while. Hopefully he will soon.

-debbie

On Jul 21, 2010, at 16:52, William Waters wrote:

> Dan, Debbie, Mike,
>  
> Thanks so much for your replies. 
> I now understand ( I hope).  I was thinking D-Rats email was similar to WinLink and that it had the predefined ability to connect to a message mailbox that would rout emails out to the web, and then back as the case may be.  I was hoping that I could do my testing and learning using a single radio and do it on my own and not have to work/bother others as I “Tinkered”  at things.  Likewise I don’t like tying up the B Node of the repeater for too long at a time for non emergency activities (though I have never heard anyone on that node).  It looks like to get play time with D-RATS and the like, I need a second D-STAR radio.
>  
[…]

> One last Question?  Can I use a DVDongle to take the place of the second Radio?