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<DIV>THANKS Dan. All very good points that I will forward on to our RACES
staff.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>
<DIV>In a message dated 1/30/2010 5:24:56 P.M. Mountain Standard Time,
dsmith@danplanet.com writes:</DIV>
<BLOCKQUOTE style="BORDER-LEFT: blue 2px solid; PADDING-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px"><FONT style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: transparent" color=#000000 size=2 face=Arial>> The
El Paso County RACES is going to be using D-Rats for an upcoming<BR>> 5
county exercise. This will be the first time for us to use D-Rats. We<BR>>
have been working on training our members on the use of D-Rats. We<BR>>
expect to send about 400 messages in a 5 hour period during both the<BR>>
functional and full scale exercise. What I am looking for is any
lessons<BR>> learned by other groups or individuals that we could include
in out<BR>> training to help prevent us in making the same mistake. So, let
me hear<BR>> from you as to what you have found worked well and what did
not work for<BR>> you.<BR><BR>Definitely good to get feedback from the
others, but I'll throw in a few<BR>things:<BR><BR>1. Try to avoid using the
channel for voice as well. If you must, call<BR> for a
couple minutes of quiet to transfer a batch of messages/files.<BR>2. Use the
ping function to test connectivity before sending a file or<BR>
message to another station.<BR>3. If you can go simplex, do it, as it's much
faster. The repeaters<BR> guarantee that you have the
"hidden transmitter" problem every single<BR> time, so simplex is
better if you can do it.<BR>4. Use message routing to hop through an
intermediate station if you<BR> can't directly contact the
destination. Either use gratuitous paths,<BR> or just let
the intermediate station figure it out.<BR>5. If you have a lot of messages
coming to a single station (say, the<BR> County EOC), you can use
two radios on one station to provide two<BR> paths in.
Everyone from the east can use VHF, everyone from the west<BR> can
use UHF, etc.<BR><BR>-- <BR>Dan Smith<BR>dsmith#danplanet.com,
s/#/@/<BR>www.danplanet.com<BR>KK7DS<BR>_______________________________________________<BR>drats_users
mailing
list<BR>drats_users@intrepid.danplanet.com<BR>http://intrepid.danplanet.com/mailman/listinfo/drats_users<BR></FONT></BLOCKQUOTE></DIV></FONT></BODY></HTML>