[Dxspider-support] [Fwd: Re: Login on DxSpider]

[Ralf Baechle]

On Fri, Dec 29, 2006 at 10:44:17AM +0100, Thomas Maisl wrote:

> On Friday 29 December 2006 16:49, Eddie Olson wrote:
> > I have a user from VK with a 4 letter call.
> > As he has 4 letters in his call he cant log into DxSpider.
> > Is there a way around this ?
> >
> > This is a legitimate call ...check VK5FUEL on qrz.com
> >
> 
> Wont work. The sufix is two long (it's not a DX spider issue).
> Unless there are major code changes to both linux, ax25 etc.
> 
> Plus 'f' (Foundation) calls are not allowed on packet in Australia anyway.

The assumption of amateur radio calls being at most 7 characters has been
encoded in a significant if not even the majority of amateur radio software
packages.  That's fine as long as changing doesn't open interoperability
and standards compliance issues and exactly that's what happens in case of
AX.25 or anything that relies on it to obtain a proper callsign.  This
sort of issue is really hard to fix.

The case of DXspider is fortunately rescuable - it only relies on the
AX.25-provided callsign as a simplification when loggin in.  But I don't
hold my breath for all the long callsign issues to be fixed in amateur
radio software ...

  Ralf