[aprssig] Beacon settings

[Curt, WE7U]

On Mon, 4 Feb 2008, Alan M. Fudge DVM wrote:

> On a recent exercise, I was surprised my minitracker wasn't
> digipeated. Jeep guy said "we don't digipeat handhelds."

If the Jeep's are running D700's or D710's, they certain _can_
digipeat them if they're set up to do so.  I would think that'd be
worth pursuing.


> So I have a unit and am "playing with it. I note the HTs are set for
> RELAY, WIDE. And looking at some paths for known 4WD (Aprs query), it
> appears that the Kenwood mobiles are set for the same.

They should nowadays (North America at least) be set for
"WIDE1-1,WIDE2-1", or if you're in a particularly remote area
perhaps "WIDE1-1,WIDE2-2".

Most of the infrastructure that digipeated on the "RELAY", "WIDE",
"TRACE", or "TRACEn-N" aliases has been changed over to the new
paradism now, except for a few isolated areas that have been slow to
convert.


> And please define what RELAY means.

"RELAY" is just an alias.  So are "WIDE" and "TRACE".  APRS came
along and basically did a time-to-live counter using TRACEn-N and
WIDEn-N.  TRACEn-N is no more, but WIDEn-N lives.  When the shift
was made to the new method, the network got much more efficient due
to dupe-checking and such, plus the density of digipeaters and
igates was great enough to allow us to go to smaller numbers for the
time-to-live counters.  That's why two hops is sufficient now
instead of three or more.  "WIDE1-1,WIDE2-1" equals two hops, so is
just "WIDE2-2".  The difference is that "WIDE1-1" is digipeated by
home-based fill-in digi's -and- mountaintop digi's, whereas
"WIDE2-1" and "WIDE2-2" are digipeated -only- by mountaintop digi's.

"WIDE1-1" allows the first hop to come from fill-in digi's in
people's homes, digipeaters in Jeeps or in the ICP, etc.

Just make sure that if you use WIDE1-1 (recommended for mobiles and
portables) that you use it in the first digipeater slot only.  Use
WIDE2-1 in the 2nd slot.


> Finally I was under the impression that the TH-D7 also could
> digipeat, but was told no.

Absolutely not.  Neither will the Alinco DR-135T.  The D700/D710's
will.  So will the Alinco DR-135 (no 'T') with the Tracker2 DR-135
board added in.


> Other than the Bob B's official APRS site, are there any updated pubs
> planned?

    http://info.aprs.net
    http://nwaprs.info
    http://www.eskimo.com/~archer/ (my site)
    http://wiki.ampr2.net/nwaprs/SearchAndRescue (see item #13)

--
Curt, WE7U: <www.eskimo.com/~archer/>     XASTIR: <www.xastir.org>
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