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You are invited to check in to the ALABAMA D-STAR Net on
*Tuesday night at 8:30 pm (CDT) *

El Erby, K4DJL, will be net control this week.

Plan on checking in with the Alabama D-STAR net each Tuesday night.
This net is intended to promote D-STAR in Alabama and surrounding
states. Join us and see what is going as the technology expands. If
you have questions, throw them out and someone will help..

During recent nets we have had the Birmingham (K4DSO), Tuscaloosa
(W4KCQ), Montgomery (W4AP), Huntsville (KI4PPF), Magnolia Springs
(KI4SAZ), Atlanta (WX4GPB) and others linked to a reflector so that
everyone on all these repeaters can participate in the net.

(Any other gateway’ed repeaters are invited to join the net by having
the local gateway administrator link the repeater to REF002 - Module
B. It would be helpful if this link can be established
approximately 15 minutes before the net start time.)

To participate in the net, please follow these guidelines:

1. SET THE CALL SIGNS IN YOUR RADIO AS YOU WOULD FOR NORMAL LOCAL
USE. (RPT1 = your local repeater port C; RPT2 = your local repeater
gateway; and YOURCALL = CQCQCQ)

2. IT IS IMPERATIVE THAT EVERYONE SET ‘RPT2′ to point to the
appropriate gateway (K4DSO G, W4KCQ G, W4AP G, etc.). Without
setting RPT2 to the gateway, you will not be heard by everyone on the
net. Nobody beyond your local repeater will hear you.

3. DONGLE USERS: If you are checking into the net using a DONGLE,
make your connection to ‘REF002′ Port B instead of to your local
repeater. Only by connecting to the Reflector (REF002 port B) will
all the net participants be able to hear you.

4. BEACONS & DATA TRANSMISSIONS DURING NET: During the net, please
disable all automatic beacons and refrain from using slow speed data
messaging. As has been seen during the last few weeks, the data
transmissions almost guarantee doubling during a directed net. As we
have all learned, digital transmissions are very unforgiving when it
comes to doubling. The header information at the start of a
transmission is critical for proper operation and this addressing
information is sent only once at initial key up.

5. SLOW SPEED DATA DURING NET: Given that the D-RATS program has
been used during the recent hurricane’s, we will begin trying to pass
some limited information via slow speed data as well as voice. This
will give anyone that is interested a chance to get familiar with
data usage in a net environment. If you would like to use the slow
speed data, please download and install the latest version of D-RATS
from http://d-rats.danplanet.com/wiki/FrontPage. Note if you have
installed a version prior to version 0.2.7, it is highly recommended
that you upgrade to the latest version.

If you know of anyone that would like to be added to the distribution
list for the weekly net reminder, please send their email address to
wb4fay@wb4fay.com.

73,
Ken Adkisson - WB4FAY
Net Manager