aprsdigi

aprsdigi

[Michel Beaudry]

Hi,

I have been asked to setup a aprs digi and igate in our area; xastir
seems to function well for Igate purposes.

Does aprsdigi support the new paradgim widen-N path and the SSn-N PATH and how
to configure it?

thanks,
Michel
ve2bcw

Re: aprsdigi

[Matti Aarnio]

On Mon, Oct 29, 2007 at 08:24:45PM -0400, Michel Beaudry wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> I have been asked to setup a aprs digi and igate in our area; xastir
> seems to function well for Igate purposes.
> 
> Does aprsdigi support the new paradgim widen-N path and the SSn-N PATH and how
> to configure it?


If all you really need is receive-only, then a very early test version might
interest you:

       http://ham.zmailer.org/oh2mqk/aprsazel/aprsg-ng-v0.02.tar.gz

It is very small ANSI-C program (or perhaps C90 standard), which on Linux
system can also receive packets from local AX.25 network (apparently).
Will relay everything (sans couple simple rules) to configured APRS-IS
server.

It does not use _any_ external libraries aside of glibc on Linux.
It runs at _any_ POSIX system with serial port(s)[*] and IP network stack.
At Linux it will listen on internal AX.25 network if such is available.

*) I use USB serial port cable to my KISS TNC.

It is so early a beast that I got it running for the most part a week ago,
and now it has been doing my local  Rx -> KISSTNC -> Rx-i-gate -> APRS-IS
processing.   At the moment the TNC must be talking plain basic KISS.
The TODO -file has many important things, like usage manual...


You may rightly wonder, why no threads, widget-libraries, C++ ?
I wanted to show that even "old" methodologies can be used for successfull
and especially lightweight end result.   One which can be placed on very
small and low-power gadget computer drinking up from 48V batteries at a ham
site.  Rack-PC:s with spinning disks don't survive Finnish winters..
Fanless small machines may survive.

Like this one:
   http://ham.zmailer.org/gallery2/v/oh2mqk/2007/06/16-a/img_0320.jpg.html

That one is actually a bit on the hefty side of things, but has read-only
mounted flash disk, and 128 MB RAM.  It runs OH2RDY APRS GW.

The radio of OH2RAY + TNC are on the low edge of this photo:
   http://ham.zmailer.org/gallery2/v/oh2mqk/2007/06/16-a/img_0312.jpg.html

rest is OH2RAY repeater (70 cm band), and common 24V/14V DC supplies.



> thanks,
> Michel
> ve2bcw

73 de Matti, OH2MQK

    http://aprs.fi/info/OH2MQK-1

Re: aprsdigi

[Hamish Moffatt]

On Tue, Nov 06, 2007 at 09:49:25PM +0200, Matti Aarnio wrote:
> On Mon, Oct 29, 2007 at 08:24:45PM -0400, Michel Beaudry wrote:
> > Hi,
> > 
> > I have been asked to setup a aprs digi and igate in our area; xastir
> > seems to function well for Igate purposes.
> > 
> > Does aprsdigi support the new paradgim widen-N path and the SSn-N PATH and how
> > to configure it?
> 
> If all you really need is receive-only, then a very early test version might
> interest you:
> 
>        http://ham.zmailer.org/oh2mqk/aprsazel/aprsg-ng-v0.02.tar.gz

If you only need read-only gating, then aprsmon from the aprsdigi package 
would also suit.

What will aprsg-ng do eventually?

Hamish
-- 
Hamish Moffatt VK3SB <hamish@debian.org> <hamish@cloud.net.au>

Re: aprsdigi

[Matti Aarnio]

On Wed, Nov 07, 2007 at 08:00:27AM +1100, Hamish Moffatt wrote:
....
> > If all you really need is receive-only, then a very early test version might
> > interest you:
> > 
> >        http://ham.zmailer.org/oh2mqk/aprsazel/aprsg-ng-v0.02.tar.gz
> 
> If you only need read-only gating, then aprsmon from the aprsdigi package 
> would also suit.
> 
> What will aprsg-ng do eventually?

What we need here is:

  - Multiple receive-only TNCs at sites to be gated into APRS-IS without
    needing individual callsigns at each port, or much of any callsigns.


A bit of backgrounder:

  - Automatic transmitters have yearly license fees, thus building coverage
    with them does cost more - and crowds the frequencies with transmissions

  - Receive only is free of license fees - anybody can put a net connected
    receiver on their HF tower / house / highraise  to densify receiver
    network - surprisingly many are willing, as long as it uses minimal
    little electrical power  (this includes people just interested in
    amateur radio, and those with beginners licenses)

  - Repeaters could be used "co-receiver" for some APRS Rx applications
    in our bands - the european 144.800 MHz APRS slot is on the pass-band
    side of 2m NBFM repeater duplexers in this part of Region-1.
    At 70 cm band the situation is way more ugly with Region-1 APRS channel
    allocation in middle of ISM interference and voice repeater just below
    (receivers) and above (transmitters) of that noise source

  - Thoughts of placing short MICe burst in front of  or after of
    a voice transmission on repeater needs also multiple receiver TNCs

  - A well known and widely used aprs-rf-gateway software breaks MICe
    frames every now and then and had to be patched
       http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=242497
    (even current version suffers of this problem)
    All finnish instances of aprsd are running with this patch.
    Sure the MICe should not have non-printable characters in
    the frame, but reality is different...

  - A well known and widely used aprs-gateway wants to read TNCs via
    node-internal AX.25 network, but by default it runs "read all net
    traffic in promisc mode" -- including all ethernet stuff

  - Said well known software is able to support _one_ serial port or
    machine internal AX.25 network, but not both at the same time

  - Said well known software does apparently want callsign on every
    AX.25 attached TNC port in the machine

  - Giving each receive-only port its own callsign-ssid is a bit excessive

  - Existing software has mediocre support for running elsewere than
    on Linux with kernel compiled to support AX.25


Right now the  aprsg-ng  does that receiver stuff with up to 16 serial
ports (runtime configurable) into single (configurable) APRS-IS destination.
It does also listen machine on internal AX.25 network in promisc mode
and pick UI frames from there too.  (Not all UI frames are APRS, so that
probably needs some sort of exclusion filters, which is on TODO list.)

My next hardware project is probably  a 6 port 1200 baud Rx-only AFSK-modem
presenting a USB "modem class device" to host machine and talking multi-port
KISS there.  (Wishfully thinking that selecting proper HID class lets
me to avoid the need for device specific drivers...  In Linux that does
work, elsewere maybe not.)


> Hamish
> -- 
> Hamish Moffatt VK3SB <hamish@debian.org> <hamish@cloud.net.au>

Matti Aarnio, OH2MQK