[aprssig] monitoring an igate

[Keith - VE7GDH]

Andre PE1RDW wrote on 09/03/2005 10:43:34 PM PST

> what is the best way to find out what an igate is hearing if you don´t
> know what it´s ip adress is? I have been trying to reach an igate (pd2wdr)
> but it is not acking my messages.

It doesn't appear that you are being heard by any IGate or by a digipeater that can be heard by an IGate. See... <http://www.findu.com/cgi-bin/raw.cgi?call=PE1RDW*>. You don't show up there at all.

I tried pinging PE1RDW and received the following response:
TCPIP (I was going out via TCPIP of course), PI1EHV-5,PI1EHV-2*
and strangely right afterwards as a result of a single ping sent at that time...
TCPIP,PI1EHV-5,PIQEHV-2,PI1APR*

Are you close to PE1RDW? Is it the only IGate around there? Would you do any better going to another one instead? Just for testing, you could try "getting out" via PE1EHV-5, PI1EHV-2 or PI1APR to see if it would help.

What destination are you sending your beacons to, and what unproto path are you using? Do you have some non-APRS related problem? No RF out of your transmitter, SWR off the end of the scale? Transmitting with an offset instead of simplex?

> I´m getting the impressing it is not only spitting out a [A LOT OF] packets
> (messages for stations half way across the world etc)
> but is also deaf. Maybe it is deaf because it is transmitting almost all the time.

See http://www.findu.com/cgi-bin/raw.cgi?call=PD2WDR
It appears to be using a path of RELAY,WIDE4-4. 

You could have a valid point there... that it can't hear while it is transmitting. I don't know about the Netherlands, but in some places, RELAY,WIDE4-4 would be considered an abusive path. If it is in fact spewing out data from the Internet to RF, you might want to have a word with the operator and ask him to stop. There will be instances where "some" data sent to RF might be useful, but for most places, only messages to "local" stations should be sent out from the IGate to RF. If the IGate was in the middle of no-where and couldn't be heard by any digis, and if there weren't mother APRS users in the area, it wouldn't make any difference. However, I'm sure there other APRS users around him, so if he is saturating the RF network with data from the Internet, he could make APRS pretty much unusable around there.

PS - is it just a coincidence about the two callsigns? RDW vs WDR?

73 es cul - Keith VE7GDH
--
"I may be lost, but I know exactly where I am!"