[Dxspider-support] Australian 4 letter calls

[Dirk Koopman G1TLH]

Brendan Minish wrote:
> On Fri, 2009-11-20 at 11:03 +0000, Ian Maude wrote:
>> However, they have a callsign that is recognised by the Australian
>> authorities and we cannot discriminate just because they only have one
>> foot on the ladder.
> 
> The issue I would have with 4 letter calls (& longer..) is how all the
> other nodes on the network will handle spots, talk, ann etc. Isn't there
> a real risk that not all nodes will handle 4 letter calls properly 
> They are also a non runner over packet.
> 
> Perhaps we should allow 4 letter calls to connect but not spot, talk or
> ann (beyond the local node anyway) 
> Surely that's enough cluster access to support logging software and get
> one's feet wet yet protects the rest of the cluster network from
> unintended consequences.
>  
> for example.. 
>  vk4abcd posts on a node, some other node (possibly running something
> ancient and now unsupported )  in the network parses this differently
> and truncates it to VK4ABC and we have dupe spots, one with an invalid
> originating call  
> 

I have reverted the change.

Sorry Ian.

The downside is too great. Also, in the current climate it also gives a 
greater opportunity to be clever with rude, fake, logins.

Dirk