The special Tuesday night CanNet to test the D-STAR network across Canada went very well. I was returning home from work and listened to the net start and take check-ins across from BC to Saskatchewan. I arrived home at that point in the net and could not stay around for the Ontario check-ins.
E-mailing Gord, VE7FKY, indicated that it was a big success and he had the following to report.
The net went fantastic. My original email said it should last for about 1/2 to 3/4 of an hour, but I didn’t realize the support we would get for this test net. We ended up just shy of 70 checkins and it went almost 90 minutes to accommodate everyone. We handled both French and English.
From a technical point of view there’s not much excitement. The net ran almost flawless and the xrf reflector held the stress test better then I would have thought. On the Friday night net we have been pointing some fingers at DVAP/Dongles/DVARS etc. as being our culprit but the Tuesday night net everybody lived in complete harmony. We didn’t need to separate rf from the other DVAP/Dongles etc as we do on Friday nights. From my point of view being a CanNet net control op this was one of the sweetest nets I could have handled. On Friday nights when I’m the net op it can be very frustrating when the dropouts occur, you don’t know if it’s local, reflector, or the whole system has gone down. I do have the luxury of having both an ICOM and Free Star system to listen to out here and usually one or the other goes down and sometimes both go down. Try doing a net where you don’t have a clue to what’s happening.
The only dropouts we had were man made. A few doubles and a couple of people with beacons turned on were are only issues. Even the beacon issues were handled very smoothly by the xrf reflector, whereas on an ref reflector it can cause major dropouts. The doubles also were handled very well. We were down only for that one particular transmission whereas on an ref system it might come back on the next transmission or you might have to wait a couple. One repeater system that can drop out totally on a Friday night and they have to bring down the link and restart it again, had no problems that way at all.
Although it’s only one night, it would appear that the Free Star system is more stable then the DPlus system. I would like to thank everyone who participated or just listened in. Your comments during the net and those emailed to me after were very much appreciated. It was so successful that were in the talking stages about putting together a second night of the CanNet using xrf021b.
Well done to Gord and all the other organizers.
D-Star Ottawa 
