[drats_users] Some D-RATS questions (mostly AX25 related)

[Joe Thielen]

My club just set up a TNC for use with D-RATS.  But we're not using the
AX25 option.  We're just starting testing with it.  Our goal is to
eventually have 2m/440 packet nodes as well as D-STAR tie-ins.  We're also
looking to make use of the Winlink 2000 functionality.

I totally understand what Dan is saying about old TNC technology.  But I
also share some of Jason's points.  This stuff is out there and unused
(TNCs/packet equip).  My club had a packet cluster back in the day and that
equipment has just sat there (antennas/coax/radios/TNCs).  With some
minimal investment and cleaning up we're trying to make some good use of
this again.

As for Jason's digipeater ideas, I personally have conflicting feelings on
this.  I think it's a great idea,  technologically... being able to bring
in the APRS users into D-RATS.  But I also share Dan's sentiments here... I
wouldn't want to have non-APRS stuff on the APRS channel.  I do like Dan's
idea about a quick and dirty way to accept APRS position reports into
D-RATS.  I think that would add some quick value.  However, in Jason's
situation I would rather see a way to get those APRS users onto a separate
D-RATS freq.  But if the APRS users have fixed frequency transmitters...
ugh.  Round and round :).  UNLESS Jason could set up a digipeater which
listened on 144.39 but transmitted on the D-RATS freq... that way the APRS
data makes its way to the D-RATS side.

??

On Jun 14, 2012 10:46 AM, "Dan Smith" <dsmith at danplanet.com> wrote:

> 1) Is there a way to repeat APRS position reports onto a D-RATS net? For
> example, if I have some...
No, D-RATS currently doesn't understand anything about raw APRS itself.
The APRS spec is fairly messy and properly parsing the hundreds of
variations is a lot of work that I haven't seen the need to add. I may
add basic parsing (i.e. just lat/lon/symbol) at some point, but it's not
currently supported.

> 2) Is there anything "bad" about using a TNC connected to 144.39, >
setting the PATH to some WIDE...
Well, it depends on your infrastructure, users, and other such factors.
Around here, you'd become rather unpopular extremely quickly if you did
this.

You should note that D-RATS' support for using TNCs is really basic and
certain things won't work properly, such as transferring any block
longer than what the TNC can handle. TNCs have different limits
depending on model, age, and the mode you put them in. D-RATS was
designed for D-STAR radios, which can stream data continuously, and thus
it doesn't currently have the necessary logic to arbitrarily break
things up into tiny pieces for digest by a 1980's-era device. Most chat
messages are small enough and the file/form transfers already break
things up so you just have to make sure the block size settings are such
that they'll never get too large for the TNC.

The TNC and AX.25 support are mostly tools for gaining acceptance and
doing testing at the moment. I'm not sure if anyone is really using it
effectively for production work. Maybe someone will speak up here and
prove me wrong. My real point is: make sure you test what you're
planning to do before you commit to doing it :)

--
Dan Smith
www.danplanet.com
KK7DS


_______________________________________________
drats_users mailing list
drats_users at intrepid.danplanet.com
http://intrepid.danplanet.com/mailman/listinfo/drats_users
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://intrepid.danplanet.com/pipermail/drats_users/attachments/20120614/3feadfbe/attachment.html