[drats_users] More Help Please

[Dan Smith]

> You're right, I didn't take this into consideration. I was able to
> Chat RF-wise with a couple of stations last night via WD4STR.

Good to hear :)

> One odd thing though, When I was on the Dongle (I figured that out
> last night also) and I could chat with another Dongle user, but not
> see anything on the RF side. I figured that having two stations on at
> the same time may have confused D-STAR.

Yep, this is a standing issue with the dongle at the moment.  My best
guess based on experimentation is that the dongle software is too quick
to transmit a chunk of text, which causes the repeater on the other end
to not have a constant stream of data to keep it keyed the whole time.
The behavior I see is similar to what happens if you try to use a
character-based terminal program to chat with the radios.  If you type
very fast, you keep the buffer full.  If you type very slowly, you let
the radio have time to key, unkey, key, etc.  If you're in the middle
somewhere, the radio is constantly running out of buffer space, unkeying
and then immediately keying again which it doesn't seem to like.

I've talked to Robin about this a couple of times and I plan to lure him
with french fries into a more serious conversation at Dayton :)

-- 
Dan Smith
www.danplanet.com
KK7DS