[nos-bbs] JNOS (NOSaprs) RF broadcasts not working, and how to fix

[M Langelaar]

Good evening,

Decided to leave my HF rig mostly on 18.108 (Dial) USB with WinRPR software
modem as a robust packet port on my JNOS system, so if anyone wants to try
or needs APRS igate capability on 17m hopefully my puny little system can
help you at some point. It actually can digipeat (in theory) as well.

For the longest time my APRS broadcasts (ie rfstat and rfpos) have not been
happening, and I finally figured out why.

IF you run your aprs commands in autoexec.nos and you do NOT have anything
configured for 'aprs bc rfpos' or 'aprs bc rfstat' at runtime, then from 
that point on,
you will never see them happen, even if you run them at the JNOS console 
days
later.

You will have to restart JNOS and make sure you have at least something 
defined
in your rfpos or rfstat commands at run time. JNOS will not check again, 
which I
need to fix the code so that if nothing is configured at start, then it 
should check
on a regular basis (which it doesn't). I know, long winded, hope it 
makes sense.

Here is how I have configured both my APRS Internet System side and 
WinRPR side
broadcasts as of late. I don't use the 'stat' anymore, since I can just 
put all pertinent
information into just the one 'pos' broadcast, and version is useless 
(will be deleted) :

    aprs interface rp0

    aprs bc pos "4953.22NI09718.35W& IGate / BBS RPR 18.108 (Dial) USB"
    aprs bc timer 30
    aprs bc ver off

    aprs bc rfpos "4953.22NI09718.35W& IGate / BBS Winnipeg"
    aprs bc rftimer 15
    aprs bc rfver off

During times of no propogation I temporarily set 'aprs bc rftimer 420' 
to prevent
any broadcasts for 7 hours, then when things are open again for my coverage
area, I just set it back to every 15 minutes.

Hope this helps, and I will get the code fixed asap.

Maiko / VE4KLM