The mismatch is usually caused by the station or ratflector monitoring two or more ports at the same time.? Originally, it was thought that a station would only want to be on one port at a time, but we found that multiple ports were possible.? This allowed a station to monitor the main RAT ratflector and one or more others.? We just had to watch to see which port the other station was transmitting on and jump to that port to answer.? During actual operations, this might not be a good idea but could be a necessity for a station acting as a liaison station between groups working two or more different ratflectors or ports during an incident. One drawback is in the posting of QSTs.? The choices are between posting to the CURRENT port or to ALL PORTS the station is monitoring.? You cannot specify sending to a group of particular ports and not to others.? For example, I am presently posting to ALL PORTS Tropical Weather Advisories from the National Weather Service to ALL PORTS.? Many of the stations on RAT, SEWX, and StTammany might be interested in getting prepared for a possible tropical storm or hurricane getting ready to form in the Gulf of Mexico.? The PDRA ratflector group in Pennsylvania maybe not so much.? I don't have a choice of cutting out the PDRA port unless I quit monitoring it completely.? I am not complaining here.? I am ecstatic about the phenomenal progress we are making in having a software package hams are getting FOR FREE to use in EmComm work.
Glen Strecker