After my recent upgrade and subsequent callsign change, I found myself at loose ends over my TH-D74 and my IC-7100 when it came to D-Star. Sure, I updated the Zumspot to have my new call and I registered with a new repeater, but nothing else changed. So I thought that a quick update to the repeater settings on my radios would be pretty simple. After all, the IC-705 still worked.
I should not think like an end user when it comes to ham radio and configurations. I should go full, old school, punchcard computing wizard. I should think as though I were programming firmware.
This note is for future me: The behavior characterizes itself in such a way as to suggest that the strings that make up RPT1 and RPT2 MUST be 8 characters.
KC8JC B == NO GOOD!
KC8JC B == GOOD!Go back and look at that again. There are two spaces after the second callsign before the letter B.
My IC-705 worked just fine. I think that’s because it’s smarter than the other two rigs. Which might make some sense. And yet…
The makers of the software used to program these radios seem to live in a world where this is not a constraint. Maybe I’m doing it wrong? But I don’t think so. I think this is the reason nothing worked because when I changed it, everything was fine. So if that’s true then it means that the software that is helping me program my radio is letting me make a mistake. That sucks. Doubly so because the failure is silent. Literally silent. As in, the hotspot doesn’t respond when the radio is misconfigured.
Yeah. Those are a couple of hours that I won’t get back, but writing this down will make sure I don’t do it again.
