[aprssig] Recommended Behavior for Read-Only APRS-IS Clients?

[Steve Dimse]

On Apr 19, 2015, at 7:43 AM, Pete Loveall AE5PL Lists <hamlists at ametx.com> wrote:

> The reason for a keep-alive from the server was initially because early server software would sometimes get overloaded and just quit responding.  

No, the keep-alive was first implemented for almost the exact opposite reason - too little traffic. It is almost comical to consider now, but the early APRS-IS was so sparsely populated that 30 second gaps without any traffic were common, and much longer ones were possible, especially if one of the two original IGates were down (and certain if both were down). PPP software commonly disconnected without activity in a short amount of time, so the keep-alive was there to keep a client connection up through both TCP and PPP protocols when there was nothing on the feed. The first time aprsd or APRSserv overloaded was years after keep alive was implemented.

Steve K4HG