[ax25-layer2] 7-byte address proposal

[Barry White]

Hello Pete,
             I was not aware that the R bits had been used by anyone.
Certainly version 3 should use variable length address fields with a 
field separator character.
In many cases this would save overheads due to short callsigns.

Whatever is done in ver 2.x should be backward compatible.
It will produce some messy results, but it is only for use in a limited 
number of countries for a limited time.  So only those countries will 
need to use the fiddled version.
The BBSs are another problem and I will have a play here and see how 
much internal programming is six character bound.  It may well turn out 
that it is all a waste of time fiddling about with trying to fit the 7 
characters into version 2.
I have just remembered that DIRMES.SYS in FBB is six character bound.
That almost on its own means that FBB will need major changes to 
accomodate 7 characters.

 From a previous discussion you were only interested in a quick fix for 
7 chars and you wanted to set aside a lot more time for version 3.
Would it be practical to go straight to a verion 3 that has variable 
length address fields and set aside the other work as version 4 ?

73 Barry VK2AAB

Pete Loveall AE5PL wrote:

> Unfortunately, nothing restricts 7 character calls to be alphabetic in
> all but the third position.  The World Cup callsigns were a good example
> of this (DQ2006A to DQ2006Z).  Also, nothing restricts countries like
> the USA with single letter prefixes from using a 1x5 format (K5AAAAA for
> instance).
> 




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