[aprssig] What settings for igate?

[Greg D.]

Hi Curt,

Thanks for the info!

More questions, below...

Greg.


----Original Message Follows----
From: Curt Mills <archer at eskimo.com>
Reply-To: TAPR APRS Mailing List <aprssig at lists.tapr.org>
To: TAPR APRS Mailing List <aprssig at lists.tapr.org>
Subject: Re: [aprssig] What settings for igate?
Date: Sat, 28 Apr 2007 23:47:56 -0700 (PDT)

On Sat, 28 Apr 2007, Greg D. wrote:

 >> Currently I am only transmitting my fixed position once/hr, with a 
"house"
 >> icon.  I see xastir settings under Interface control -> Properties to 
gate RF
 >> to Internet, and to set the unproto paths.  Presumably I just check the 
RF to
 >> Internet only box, as my station is not very high level and wouldn't be 
a help
 >> going the other direction.  The first unproto path is set to WIDE2-1, 
and the
 >> others are blank.  Is this correct?  I think most of the other settings 
are
>>pretty much default.  Anything I should change or verify before turning it 
>>on?

>I'd change it to send your position once/30 minutes, as many
>stations out there will expire you after 30 minutes.  I believe
>UI-View is this way, which is by far the most popular client out
>there.

Ah, ok.  I had changed it to the max (60min) to lessen the load on the
system, since my info doesn't change much.  Guess I went too far.

>Also:  To gate to the internet you need to set that mode in the
>File->Configure->Defaults dialog and on the particular interface
>you're using for your TNC.  This is so that you can have multiple
>interfaces out there and decide the gating direction/enabling for
>each interface individually.  Turn off the global one
>(Configure->Defaults) and they all stop gating.

Ok, found that.  But, there are three options in the next frame down
that are currently not checked:
  - Transmit compressed objects/items
  - Activate Alternate Net
  - Disable posit dupe-check
I assume I leave them off?

There is also a field for typing in a string, but it's not labeled.
What goes there?  Currently is says "XASTIR".

>You might want to gate in both directions, as this then helps people
>to use APRS messaging.  By default the only things that will get
>gated to RF are messages and ack's, not all the packets you receive
>via the internet.  If you like you can decide to gate certain NWS
>weather alerts to RF as well.  How to do that is in the docs.  Just
>grep for "nws-stations.txt" through the files.

I guess I'm skeptical about how much value this would have, since I
live in a bit of a hole.  We're by a creek, so by definition I have hills
on two sides.  The antenna currently is a twin lead Jpole hanging
on the wall in the shack, on the first floor of the house.  Height above
ground is maybe 8', depending on where you measure to.  Height
above the street level is about zero (the lot slopes down).  Power is
5 watts.  There is a good digi and igate 21.3 miles from here (K6FGA-1)
on Banner Mt.  Fortunately, it is down stream, so I can hit it reliably.
Is adding my little 5w station to the RF clutter a benefit or just more
QRM?

I guess the program knows where on the Internet to aim the traffic,
as I see no place to configure it.

One more question:  A number of the postings related to old vs new
addressing (wide vs wide n-n) talk about needing to upgrade the
hardware (TNC, presumably).  Is my MFJ TNC ok, needing new
software, or does this even matter when using XASTIR?

MFJ ENTERPRISES INC
MODEL NO. MFJ-1278B
MULTIMODE DATA CONTROLLER-Enhanced BBS
AX.25 Level 2 Version 2.0 + Host Mode
Release 4.1  09/17/93 - 32+12160K RAM Multilevel

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