[aprssig] IGate Registering for ANSRVR (Messaging failures)

[Steve Dimse]

> On Jul 15, 2016, at 11:12 AM, Lynn W. Deffenbaugh (Mr) via aprssig <aprssig at tapr.org> wrote:
> 
> PS.  If anyone can speak authoritatively on what criteria the other IGate software uses for gating messages from the APRS-IS to RF, I'd be all ears... er eyes and would love to be corrected or confirmed in my recollection that one of them can consider distance rather than used hops.
> 
The intent very definitely was as Bob stated, it should be based on what the IGate hears as local, local being defined as heard in n or fewer hops in the last y minutes. n was to be adjusted to match the number of hops the outgoing message would be sent with. e.g if the TNC sends via WIDE,WIDE, n should be 2; if it uses VIA WIDE then n=1. y should be a few times greater than the longest beacon interval, say 120 minutes but this is not that critical.

I do not recall ever hearing about someone defining local as a distance, and if I had I would think I would remember. This is a bad idea. A hop may be 20 miles as in the Florida Keys, or 100 miles or more for a mountaintop digi. And if it is a wide coverage it is very likely not omnidirectional, so even with thought you could not program a single realistic distance to call local. 

I don't think I'd go as far as Bob to say this ruins the utility of messaging, but it does make it less reliable while adding no improvement that I can think of. Anyone doing this in their code should reconsider. 

Steve K4HG