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Hi Jon,

We are using Tactical Calls in EmComm and that works just fine with Direwolf. As you mention there are legal requirements to identify the sender with their license (FCC callsign) after every transmission (or every 10 minutes for longer transmissions).

so long as I have a legal callsign in a beacon that is transmitted no more than every 10 minutes?

"no more than every 10 minutes" would not meet the letter of the law, did you mean "no less than every 10 minutes" ?

Instead of Beacons, we use Outpost Packet Manager as the primary client application and when configured to use a Tactical Callsign it has separate fields in the Station Id for the FCC Callsign and the Tactical Callsign. Outpost will automatically transmit a UI-Frame after the transmission identifying the sender with their true FCC Callsign after the last packet in a connected-mode session (if the session used a Tactical Callsign).

Other packet message clients may allow you to configure a signature line that gets automatically added to every plain text message. This signature line can be used for the legally required identification of the senders true callsign.

I'm not a fan of using beacons for this purpose since they will continue to transmit at frequent intervals even when they are not needed. In the process they are likely to interfere with actual packet message traffic.

73,
Thomas
KK6FPP

Are you doing APRS or connected-mode packet where you want to use tactical names?

The big issue with tactical names is that the chance of simultaneous reuse is potentially high (how many public service events has a SAG1 unit?). So, unless you're purely RF (no use of APRS-IS), you will get collisions between duplicate tactical names, which may cause Internet clients like aprs.fi to reject the packets due to jumping back and forth too quickly. Use of tactical names mapped to real callsign-SSIDs within the clients for the tactical operation may be more effective; Xastir, SARtrack, APRSIS32, and YAAC all support tactical names for APRS stations. This also has the benefit for APRS usage that the real callsign is being sent in every RF transmission, and the clients are converting it on receipt to the tactical name, so you don't need to worry about not sending the real callsign often enough. On the other hand (also for APRS), if your AX.25 packet sender address is tactical, you can still put your real callsign in the free-text comment of the packet body to keep it legal.

For connected-mode packet, you would need a technique like Thomas mentioned in Outpost.

Andrew, KA2DDO
________________________________________
From: [email protected] <[email protected]> on behalf of Jon Adams via groups.io <n7uv.jon@...>
Sent: Tuesday, February 25, 2025 11:22 AM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: [direwolf] Tactical Call support in direwolf?

[Edited Message Follows]

Hi Thomas -

Yes, you are correct - I meant no less than once every 10 minutes. I too would like to see a more clever method that meets the regulatory requirement without wasting bandwidth. Outpost appears to be more efficient. I wonder if there are other packages/products that can be configured to do the same thing?

Cheers and 73 - Jon N7UV