[drats_users] Once Again

[Dan Smith]

> Well, it just doesn't work. The radios are about 100 feet apart and
> I'm only seven miles straight line from the repeater sitting atop a
> water tank on top of a hill.

Well, that sounds ideal, but multipath could still make that an
unworkable situation.  Are you testing on 2m or 70cm?

> Last Monday night I was not able to chat with a station on this same
> repeater. I see the repeater auto ID on the screen as garbage ( I
> guess that's to be expected)

No, that's not expected.  If you see garbage during a transmission that
should have no data (such as voice or a repeater ID, then your RF path
is not clean like you think it is.  If the "ID" you're talking about is
Robin's stock "remote system linked" messages, then you're seeing what
should be his cleanly recorded GPS data come across corrupted, which
also means your RF path is not okay.

> Either my setup is wrong on both PC setups (and I set up per the Docs
> on the D-Rats Website) or there's something wrong at the repeater.
> Unfortunately, I can't link the B & C modules to REF015C at the same
> time. I'll have to give it a try again if I can get the other station
>  to work with me.

Please just put both of your radios on a free simplex channel and try it
that way.  That removes a lot of variables from the equation and will
give you a baseline to know whether or not your computers are working.
The number of people who have replied suggesting RF-related issues
should tell you something about what they had to troubleshoot and
overcome in their situations.

Are you using a real ICOM data cable for both radios?  Especially when
using a rubber duck just inches from the data cable, you *can* have
issues with RF killing the serial data stream.  The choke on the ICOM
cable helps with that.

If all else fails, try a null modem cable between the two computers (and
set them both to the same baud rate of course).  That will take RF and
the radios out of the equation for an even lower baseline.

-- 
Dan Smith
www.danplanet.com
KK7DS