D-Star Repeater "Beacon"?
May 24, 2016 16:37:40 GMT -7
Post by AA7US on May 24, 2016 16:37:40 GMT -7
Greetings all,
New to D-Star here (about a week now). I'm running a RasPi B with UHF DVAP Dongle and D-Star Commander. After trying out the Western D-Star image for a couple of days, I just switched over to D-Star Commander this morning and absolutely LOVE it! The simplicity of the interactive setup is refreshing. Thank you W6KD Bob!!!
Now I know this question isn't specific to D-Star Commander, but I know there must be some knowledgeable / experienced folks hanging out here...
Can anyone explain exactly what the "Beacon" function in G4KLX D-Star Repeater does? Specifically, I'd like to know how transmitting beacons affects others beside myself.
I scoured the interwebs for some answers and I've found this on the D-Star Reflector WiKi:
"The Beacon Tab
The beacon timer is used by the repeater to control the transmission of a repeater identification transmission when the repeater is not in use. The beacon may be silent with slow data text associated with it, or it may include audio which spells the callsign of the repeater as well as the slow data text.
The default beacon time is ten minutes, and setting it to zero suppresses the beacon. The text transmitted is set here, and by default is the name of the repeater software along with the version date, it is recommended that this text be replaced with something more meaningful, up to a maximum of twenty characters.
Setting the Voice entry to On enables the beacon audio, and it is important that the language is also set correctly in this case so that the sound of the beacon is correct."
When I asked this same question on a DVAP forum, I had one ham email me:
The one thing I can tell you is that you absolutely DO NOT want to set a Beacon.
It can be disruptive and quite annoying and is frowned on. The same is true of
trying to connect to another friend’s callsign automatically. It also tends to be
disruptive to conversations.
Since it seems the beacon should only be transmitted locally from my DVAP when idle, I fail to see how the beacon could be disruptive so I'm confused.
73,
John
AA7US
New to D-Star here (about a week now). I'm running a RasPi B with UHF DVAP Dongle and D-Star Commander. After trying out the Western D-Star image for a couple of days, I just switched over to D-Star Commander this morning and absolutely LOVE it! The simplicity of the interactive setup is refreshing. Thank you W6KD Bob!!!
Now I know this question isn't specific to D-Star Commander, but I know there must be some knowledgeable / experienced folks hanging out here...
Can anyone explain exactly what the "Beacon" function in G4KLX D-Star Repeater does? Specifically, I'd like to know how transmitting beacons affects others beside myself.
I scoured the interwebs for some answers and I've found this on the D-Star Reflector WiKi:
"The Beacon Tab
The beacon timer is used by the repeater to control the transmission of a repeater identification transmission when the repeater is not in use. The beacon may be silent with slow data text associated with it, or it may include audio which spells the callsign of the repeater as well as the slow data text.
The default beacon time is ten minutes, and setting it to zero suppresses the beacon. The text transmitted is set here, and by default is the name of the repeater software along with the version date, it is recommended that this text be replaced with something more meaningful, up to a maximum of twenty characters.
Setting the Voice entry to On enables the beacon audio, and it is important that the language is also set correctly in this case so that the sound of the beacon is correct."
When I asked this same question on a DVAP forum, I had one ham email me:
The one thing I can tell you is that you absolutely DO NOT want to set a Beacon.
It can be disruptive and quite annoying and is frowned on. The same is true of
trying to connect to another friend’s callsign automatically. It also tends to be
disruptive to conversations.
Since it seems the beacon should only be transmitted locally from my DVAP when idle, I fail to see how the beacon could be disruptive so I'm confused.
73,
John
AA7US
