[aprssig] IGATE at Home

[Dennis Hudson]

There are many software options for gating/reverse gating of APRS  
traffic between the internet and RF. One of the biggest questions you  
should consider is if you actually need an another igate for your  
area. Depending on terrain a single igate can serve a radius of a  
hundred miles or more. Looking at findu there is already more than  
one station in your area gating traffic. <http://www.findu.com/cgi- 
bin/near.cgi?zip=28723>

You should consider working together with these folks to make sure  
you're not abusing the fragile 1200 bauds that are available on  
144.39. What we have done in the Northeast is try to spread the gates  
out so they don't interfere and overly duplicate internet services.  
The gates then can reduce their outgoing path to only comfortably  
cover their area without flooding it. Temporary home gateways are  
encouraged to participate by being listen only, and act as WIDE1-1  
fill digis as needed. You might find that someone is interested in  
letting you take over as iGate sysop. I've been doing it for my  
region for 7-8 years.

If you are just interested in learning what it will do then do it  
with a single hop or even direct to see the effect. If you're serious  
about it then consider using serious software, use javAPRSIgate along  
with javAPRSSrvr. This is what the core and regional servers use.  
This software is mature server software where many of the client  
programs like ui-view, winaprs, etc have gating functions that can be  
difficult to set up properly. They can probably do the job, but the  
tendency is for them to be setup improperly, ie sending useless  
"traffic" reports too frequently and over too wide an area, reverse  
gating traffic outside of it's aloha circle, or too frequently  
reverse gating outside traffic.


--
Dennis Hudson, N2LBT
Sysop APRSALY
http://neaprs.no-ip.org:14501
http://www.neaprs.org
Albany, NY


On Dec 28, 2005, at 3:44 AM, Fred Atkinson wrote:

>      The more I'm thinking this project out, the more I think I am  
> going to set up an APRS station at home.  Since I have cablemodem  
> there, there is no reason that digi on our mountain site couldn't  
> relay to my station and let me IGATE it.
>
>      Now correct me if I am wrong, but I think I need my MFJ TNC  
> connected to my PC via a serial port and some piece of software to  
> run as a process on my PC (I have Windows 2000 Professional on that  
> PC and have no intention of downgrading it to XP, just my bias).
>
>      I think I remember that there were two pieces of software that  
> might accomplish that.  What would you folks recommend for this?   
> And if I have missed something important here, please let me know.
>
>      73,
>
>
>                                         Fred, WB4AEJ
>