[K4RY] Old business items for the meeting today

[Keith Warren]

To All,

I think what Carey was referring to was "why can't it be set up like it 
was before ?"

This is not a regulatory problem. The way we used to have it set up was 
as a Digipeater that repeats what it hears locally on RF.  Any received 
station is repeated after inserting the K4RY call in the path and 
decrementing the WIDE suffix.  There was an option to have a list of 
calls that could be gated back onto RF locally.  This insures that you 
know who these people are and they are indeed validly licenced Amateurs 
and there is local interest (family & friends & club members) that would 
want to see where they are on APRS. This is also important if you do any 
ARPS messaging and a digi where you are forwards the message traffic to 
the nearest IGate to the destination station and if the option to Gate 
that call back to RF is enabled then the message is digipeated out to 
local RF.

For messaging, the system is set up to be bandwidth efficient.  Say I am 
visiting a distant city and I send a message to a local station in 
Auburn.  The message is routed via the APRS internet gateway only to 
IGates that have heard the destination station within the last half hour 
(to insure probable proximity) and it is only gated to RF if the sending 
station is on the list of calls that are allowed (so you know its a 
licensed ham)

Our list was probably less than 12 calls and they were all definitely hams.

This is of use for those of us that travel with APRS....... nice to be 
able to communicate position and messages with the home station in 
Auburn or with friends.

Its also very useful for balloon missions.  Many times K4RY was the 
destination call in the balloon path which insured that our beacons 
would get passed to Auburn locally (monitored via RF on my home station 
& others)
and since K4RY was at that time an IGate it made an internet record of 
all our packets. Of course the internet raw data complete with time 
stamp and path is only saved for 48 hours. If it also exists on a local 
RF station's history file that is an extra backup that doesn't expire.

Its also very useful for weather nets and spotters.  For example Mike 
WX4AL , could be in his car observing a funnel cloud.  What is easier 
.....having him read out some coordinates or looking on the APRS map and 
seeing his position plotted ?

The other issue is Auburn campus especially, is in a fairly low area and 
would benefit from a "fill-in" Digi.  Normally these stations have an 
alias of WIDE1-1  , and only repeat one hop which is enough to get you 
out to a real WIDE digi with a better tower and broad coverage.  Why? 
Because APRS is meant to be a mobile service. If Carey or I were driving 
around we would want to see local RF traffic......  not everyone is 
sitting at home looking at the internet.

The only decent Digi in the county is W4LEE-1 and it is not close enough 
to hear the Auburn campus or west Lee County very well .

Also,  as far as I can tell the receive-only IGate is not even reporting 
received stations right now.  I am 0.75 mi from campus and it hasn't 
heard my home station yet.  I just got digipeated by KE4KWE in Phenix 
City and it digi'ed to KJ4RHB on the east side of Columbus.  So the 
IGate that put my beacon on the internet was over 35 miles away.

Keith Warren
AK4KO






On 9/22/2011 9:53 PM, John Klingelhoeffer wrote:
> Hi Carey;
>
> Having the iGate transmit is a regulatory concern.  There is a 
> somewhat weak protection on the iGate server farm, so it is possible 
> for non-hams to put traffic into the system that would end up out on 
> the air without any control mechanisms.  This would be a problem for 
> the station trustee.
>
> I guess I can't see the rationale about 'broadcasting' a remote users 
> location, since one can go on any of the internet sites that monitor 
> the APRS servers and see the location.  Can you give me an example of 
> how that would be useful?
>
> Good to have traffic on the email reflector.  Thanks.
> 73
>
> John...
> WB4LNM
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Carey Huff <huff360 at gmail.com>
> To: K4RY <K4RY at eng.auburn.edu>
> Sent: Thu, Sep 22, 2011 12:29 pm
> Subject: Re: [K4RY] Old business items for the meeting today
>
> The list is always quiet - So I figure a discussion would do the mail 
> server some good!
>
> What's the reasoning behind planning to make it receive only?  You 
> lose some features of an I-Gate that make them such a good asset.
>
> In the past, the I-Gate that was on the old ETV tower was setup to 
> always output the calls of 'old hams' from the area.  Anyone that used 
> to be a part of the club would get their packet pulled off the net and 
> broadcast in RF there in town.  You could always see where I was as 
> long as I was within range of another I-Gate.  (I don't run APRS much 
> anymore, so it's not a big deal for me)
>
> Don't get me wrong, I'm not fussing, just more of a question out of 
> curiosity.
>
> Carey
>
>
>
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