I should have done this the first day of Hamvention 2017, but busy does not describe the last couple of weeks. Mike N4IRR and I have been working on updating and expanding the bridging ability of ASL, DMRlink and HBlink. The new applications are referred to as Partners. Partners by themselves don't do much. When 2 or more partners communicate, the partnership forms a bridge between different systems. DMRlink is the Open Source IPSC Master / Peer "stack" written in python by Cort Buffington, N0MJS. Applications are built on top of this stack. An example application built on top of the stack is the parrot. DMRlink provides the communications to and from IPSC. This can be a Motorola repeater or a Network device like c-Bridge or BrandMeister. We have added to the available applications, IPSC_bridge. This partner application communicates with DMRlink and provides a bridge to other systems. HBlink is the Open Source HB Master / Peer "stack" written in python by Cort Buffington, N0MJS. Applications are built on top of this stack. An example application built on top of the stack is the parrot. HBlink provides the communications to and from HB Repeater Protocol. This can be a MMDVM repeater, DVMega HotSpot, OpenSpot or a Network device like DMR+ or BrandMeister. We have added to the available applications, HB_bridge. This partner application communicates with HBlink and provides a bridge to other systems. The third partner is not quite new. New capabilities have been added and old capabilities enhanced. That partner is called Analog_bridge. It was formerly called DMRGateway. Analog_bridge accepts a stream of analog audio, uses a Vocoder from NW Digital to convert to AMBE and communicates it to a partner. That analog audio can come from ASL or a application running on a desktop computer. A deficiency in the method of signaling PTT assert / de-assert has been fixed. The name Analog_bridge better describes it's function. Some of you may have noticed Jonathan G4KLX just announced his gateway DMRGateway. Thank goodness there will not be any confusion in the names. Any Partner can communicate with any other Partner to form a bridge. Consider you want to bridge ASL to IPSC. (What ambe_audio and DMRGateway used to do) ASL <---> Analog_bridge <---> IPSC_bridge <---> IPSC Network. This works quite well with a simple Motorola Master / Peer configuration or a c-Bridge. With BrandMeister, there are limitations imposed. You need a BM administrator to configure the BM side of the connection. Any changes to TS or TG has to be coordinated with BM. Now consider another way to accomplish the same ASL to BM connection. ASL <---> Analog_bridge <---> HB_bridge <---> HBR Network. The HB_bridge connection is treated the same way a MMDVM is treated by BM. You as the sysop define what TS/TG is used. You can build it your way. I have spoken with Cort, The methods used to allow Partners to communicate will be expanded to include communications with other protocols and services. Cort is busy working on support for remote logging and display. Please be aware, this software is BETA. It's early in the cycle. There will be bugs and features need to be added. HBlink, DMRlink and other yet to be announced programs and tools. (D-Star_bridge?) Please understand we can not support every possible protocol, there are only so many hours in the day and some protocols would have to be reverse engineered. Oh, and some of even have lives. These are tools that allow you to enhance the systems you operate. They are NOT networks. Build it your way. After all, this is HAM radio. Analog_bridge, HB_bridge and IPSC_bridge will be posted to the repositories in a couple of days. I have uploaded some simple block diagrams to <http://dvswitch.org/files/DVSwitch/> I know some of this information is outside of the ASL Digital area. We will form a new more general list to discuss digital bridging in general. (YAML, Yet another mail list) -- "What are HB_bridge, IPSC_bridge and Analog_bridge?"