1) Keep your transmissions shorter, perhaps 15 to 30 seconds maximun due to the possibility you may be colliding with another station., and if so, the longer you talk, the longer no one can hear.
2) Always direct someone else whom you know to be listening to "take it" from you otherwise two or three people key up at once.
3) Pause before you transmit 3 to 5 seconds, even if you were directed to transmit by someone else. A third party may need to get in.
4) After three to five transmissions, while you are in control, ask if anyone else wants in and pause 10 or so seconds to give them a chance.
5) If a dongle links in and tries to talk to you, ask them to disconnect and reconnect directly to the reflector. Otherwise they won't hear anyone on the reflector although they will still hear you.
These are just ideas to mull. As you listen, you can tell some folks don't do any of these...
Take some time to watch this and listen to the repeater/gateway at the same time. You can tell when a reflector is linked very easily by the appearance of a reflector "call". Every time a transmission is made (as long as you have set RPT2=VE6GHZ G a record of that will appear - including kerchunks, hi hi.
Okay, here's another explanation of dplus and reflectors:
-------- Original Message --------Thought it was worth giving everyone an update on a few recent developments that will enhance the functionality of VE6GHZ.
Some updated software, it's called dplus in case you're wondering, has now been installed on the Gateway Server which allows linking of repeaters. Its possible to link one repeater to another eg GB7DX linked to GB7FK, or you can also link to a Reflector, this acts as a central point where multiple repeaters/dongle users can gather and all talk to each other. I participated in a World Wide Net on Sunday, the objective of the net was to see how many Repeaters and Dongle Users could connect to a Reflector and to see what sort of capacity it could take. There were 27 Repeaters, and 15 Dongle users connected. The system performed perfectly, and no performance issued were noted. So, this is Multicasting on a much larger scale.
There are 6 Reflectors. You might see them referred to as REF001, REF002, REF003.........etc In addition all the Reflectors have three Modules, A,B or C. So for example, the World Wide Net took place on REF001 C. The main UK Reflector is REF005 A. Having Repeaters linked to each other, or being connected to a Reflector does not impact on other stations connecting up to your local repeater. However if someone connects, they will be heard on all linked Repeaters/Reflectors.
The key thing to remember to make all this work, is to set your RPT 2 field to G. For example in the case of users on VE6GHZ,
Your CQCQCQ
RPT 1 VE6GHZ C
RPT 2 VE6GHZ G
This way you will be heard by all stations connected to the Reflector or by all stations connected to the linked Repeaters. This should be your standard setting for working your local Repeater. One of the things you should remember is that you might turn on your radio and not realise that you are connected up to a Reflector/Repeater, so if you put a call out don't be surprised if you get a reply that you weren't expecting. We are still getting used to this new functionality, so far its working very well, and as things develop further functionality may be added.
PS: The Australian Reflector is REF003 and the UK Reflector is REF005
Hi All (UR=CQCQCQ)!
How do you know when you turn your DStar radio on and tune to VE6GHZ whether the associated gateway is linked to another gateway or a reflector or not? With open linking on VE6GHZ, you just don't know what state the gateway is in when you first arrive on a quiet frequency. Thanks to Robin, AA4RC, you can now at least know if the gateway is currently linked or unlinked. Add the following dplus command to one of your memories:UR=VE6GHZ^I (or VE6GHZ^I where ^ means space as always)
RPT1=VE6GHZ^C (A, B or C)
RPT2=VE6GHZ^G
Key up briefly and when you unkey you will hear either "not currently linked" or "remote system linked" depending on the gateway's linking status. You still won't know to what you are linked, but at least you know you are linked. If you plan to call a particular station and think you'll have a ragchew, you might want to wait for another time when the system isn't linked to a reflector Remember, you can't break anything by doing this. You can't erase any computer memory, short circuit any radios, or annoy the FCC or Industry Canada (so far as we know). So try it out!