Hi sat ops,

Would it be possible/legal to add functionality to UZ7HO Digpeater
software to enable a VOLUNTARY / opt-in feature where when you click
Send, CQ etc. (to TX a packet), instead of immediately keying the
radio, a TX request is sent to a central Internet server (to be
created) that sorts requests in some sort of fair sequence and then
one by one commands/allows the various requesters to actually TX their
packet?

The sequence could be sorted by time, i.e. whoever sent the request
first gets in line first. It could be partially random to account for
latency (whoever is closest to the server doesn't always go first).

Additional functionality could be added to the Digpeater software, or
a central website, to display the queue so you can see your place and
watch the people in front of you send their packets and see yourself
move up the queue. This would allow everyone to calm down, knowing
their turn is coming. On the IO-117 side hopefully this would mean
less long gaps with no packets digpeated/much higher rate of
digipeats. Imagine if everyone used it: when busy, IO-117 would be
digipeating practically non-stop with gaps to RX as short as a single
transmission.

The Digipeater software could give each operator a certain number of
tries to get the packet digipeated (say 3) before putting them at the
back of the queue again if they all fail to be digipeated. The
Digipeater software could determine if they are successfully
digipeated by checking the RX packets for its own message, and
reporting back to the Internet server. The Internet server could even
check SatNOGS to verify if the packet was digipeated (it seems
telemetry is uploaded in real time). The Internet server software
could even be on SatNOGS.

You could also do something like WSJT-X and require everyone to have
accurate NTP time and packets are sent at specific intervals, RX
happens at specific intervals, but all in order, this way there isn't
an issue with varied latencies between the server and the requesters.
The sorting happens as fast as possible but the scheduling in the
intervals is a bit delayed.

You could program all sorts of sorting heuristics to make things fair
or optimize for certain things. If a new station DX station comes on
the digipeater and a pile up starts, maybe the Internet server can be
enabled to see who is near their LOS and put them at the top of the
queue, or just prioritize anyone near LOS. If a DX station goes out of
IO-117 FP, requests to TX to it would not be allowed and the requester
could be denied and told why. If stations have contacted each other
before from the same grids maybe they could have lower priority.

You could even let people complete whole QSOs quickly before moving to
the next person in the queue if they are all calling the same DX
station, if the DX station is also using the new feature and/or
following a set QSO format/exchange.

Another benefit of this is it helps low power stations as there is
less need to run high power to compete. In the FCC rules at least, it
is a requirement that you use the lowest power necessary to achieve
the radio comms goal, so if this proposal is possible it is very much
in the spirit of the rules and maybe even necessary. It seems a little
ridiculous for everyone to be running as much power and gain as
possible when I can get in easily with 5-7 watts and 10 elements when
the bird is mostly over SA.

Of course rovers without internet service can't use this, many people
will never use this for various reasons, and they could just not
enable the feature and use the Digipeater software as they do today,
sending TX commands immediately.

Adding this code and creating an Internet server would take a lot of
work. I have no solution for that but maybe if UZ7HO can't do it an
extension interface can be added to it and someone else can write an
extension that communicates with the Internet server. Someone else
could also make the Internet server. Or someone could write a new
Digipeater software that has all this functionality.

If any of this is possible/doable I think it could make IO-117 /
GreenCube a lot more easy and fun to work.

73, John Brier KG4AKV

P.S. Sorry this isn't more well thought out. I'm not a programmer and
I'm just throwing out as many ideas as I can think of. Maybe some are
possible.

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