The original D-Rats ratflector, RAT, went off line permanently a few weeks ago.??Dan Smith pulled the plug on it and said he didn’t realize people were still using it.??I guess since he had stopped supporting the project he didn’t even check.??That ratflector, ref.d-rats.com, was the only ratflector listed in the image distribution of the program.??If you had never added any additional Ratflectors to your list, you will think the program has stopped working.??It has not.??In fact, D-Rats is working as good as or better than it did before.??A new Worldwide Ratflector has been created to take the place of RAT.??It is KB8PMY.net.??Add it in Preferences under the radio tab.??Hit Add.??When the pop-up window opens, give the ratflector a name, choose Network as the connection and 9000 as the port.??

Below is a list of additional ratflectors that are in use as found on dstarinfo.com with a couple of new ones added at the end.??There are probably more with other groups around the country who’s names have not yet been submitted to them.?

Name Address (Host Address) ? ?Port Description Legacy Host Address
Alabama ARES alabama.ratflector.com 9000 drats.auburn.edu
Bangkok Thailand thailand.ratflector.com 9001 hs0zer.no-ip.com
Big Spring Texas W5AW.ratflector.com 9000 ducknest.duckdns.org
Carrolton Texas dcara.ratflector.com 9000 13.84.178.169
Central Florida cfl.ratflector.com 9000 cfl.ratflector.net
Chattanooga Tennessee tn.ratflector.com 9000 ratflector.smokyshare.com
East Bridgewater Massachusetts n1kxj.ratflector.com 9000 n1kxj.ddns.net
El Paso Texas ae5he.ratflector.com 9000 ae5he.ham-radio-op.net
Federal Way Washington wa7dr.ratflector.com 9000 wa7dr.dstargateway.org
Federal Way Washington wa7fw.ratflector.com 9000 wa7fw.dstargateway.org
Georgia ARES gaares.ratflector.com 9000 rat.gaares.org
Georgia Aux Comm gaauxcomm.ratflector.com 9000 d-rats.gaauxcomm.org
Gwinnett County Georiga ARES gwinnettares.ratflector.com 9000 gwinnettares.dyndns.org
Netherlands dcs007.ratflector.com 9000 dcs007.xreflector.net
Northern Florida nfl.ratflector.com 9000 nfl.ratflector.net
Northern Ohio Digital nodig.ratflector.com 9000 ratflector.nodig.us
Northwest Georgia ARES nwga.ratflector.com 9000 nwgaares.noip.me
NW Georgia ARES nwgaares.ratflector.com 9000
Paulding County Georgia ARES pldares.ratflector.com 9000 d-rats.pauldingares.com
Salt Lake County Utah slc.ratflector.com 9000 155.98.24.13
Santa Fe New Mexico w5sf.ratflector.com 9000 w5sf.dstargateway.org
Southeastern Weather Net sewx.ratflector.com 9000 drat.seweather.net
St Louis Missouri stlouis.ratflector.com 9000 ratf.n0so.net
St Tammany Louisiana StTammany.ratflector.com 9000 sttammany.ddns.net
Stockholm Sweden sweden.ratflector.com 9000 ratflector.ax25.org
Toledo Ohio toledo.ratflector.com 9000 w8hhf.dstargateway.org
VE6DV ve6dv.ratflector.com 9000 ve6dv.ddns.net
W5SF W5SF.ratflector.com 9000 W5SF
Washington Digital Radio Enthusiasts wa7dre.ratflector.com 9000 d-rats.wa7dre.org
Ham Radio Crash Course drats.hrcc.link 9000
New Worldwide Ratflector KB8PMY.net 9000

StTammany has been down because I was preparing to move.??I have it back up for now as the act of sale got postponed and we have a Tropical Storm inbound to my area.??When you set up your “Radio” connections, be sure you are setting the ratflectors up as a Network connection and not as Serial or one of the other selections.??These ratflectors are connected to the Internet so accessing them as a Network connection is the only way it works.??The port is almost always 9000 with no passwords.

Glen Strecker - KG5CEN

Many of the ratflectors reside on Windows 10 computers and their service has been interrupted a number of times by all of these random Microsoft updates that constantly require a reboot.??SEWX.ratflector.com and the Gwinnette ARES machine are such examples.??For a week or two they will be fine, then an update comes along and the machines require a reboot before they will work again.??The ones running on Raspberry Pi’s are sometimes plagued by intermittent power glitches, or outages that require us to go and reinitialize the software for them to work again.

In an emergency situation, these systems would be better monitored.??During last night’s storm, around 12:30 am or so, several power fluctuations caused my main computer and the ratflector to drop out.??They are back up now.

Cordially,

Glen Strecker - KG5CEN

Glen,

That happens a lot here in Hamilton, Ohio. There was a 2 week period that I was down for almost 8 hours cause it kept going on and off. I just turned the servers off so the power supplies would not blow up. When the rack goes down. It takes about 10 minutes to come back up. I do monitor it. But sometimes life gets in the way.