[Xastir] Digipeating

[Tyler Allison]

>


> I went to the Xastir web site and began reading, and ran across something
>  that I may have misinterpreted. In a reference to digi-peating, it
> seemed to be saying that Xastir doesn't do any internally (unlike
> UI-View32 which has a smart digipeater function built in), and commented
>  that the digipeating was done in the TNC. Eeeuuchh! That is not an
> acceptable solution for me. No tnc hardware does a good job of smart
> digipeating, and besides that, I'm not interested in buying new TNCs.

Xastir is firstly an APRS client, secondly a relay host. It doesnt have
any traditional digipeating capability. What I mean is that it wont sit
and watch a TNC, grap packets off the TNC, mangle them some way, and send
a copy back out a few seconds later. At least not that I know if.

It can 'relay' weather alerts, Internet to RF, RF to Internet, etc.

>
> Then there was a second comment that digi-NED could be used. My
> questions:
>
> 1. Will Xastir and digi-NED run side-by side on the same machine?

They could...yes.

> How does Xastir interface to digi-NED, or does it not do that?

I've not used digi-NED but if it has a port you can connect to
send/receive APRS packets then you can have the local Xastir talk to the
local digi-NED which manages the TNC.  Similar to if you didn't have a TNC
and wanted to use one of the internet aprs servers to send/receives aprs
traffic.

> I am so used to having a configurable smart digi integrated into the aprs
> client, that I'm having trouble imagining how to accomplish the same
> thing with two different clients. (port contention issues)

If you intend to have DIGI-NED *AND* Xastir utilize the same serial port,
then yes...you will have port contention.

>
> 2. A local station told me that Xastir could interface nicely with AGWPE
> on a Windows system. How is that accomplished?

You can setup AGWPE on a windows system on your network and tell Xastir to
talk to AGWPE's TCP/IP port.

>
> I want to keep my ui-view32 system running, (on a different machine on my
>  network) but wish to experiment with Xastir on its own dedicated Debian
> machine, on this same network.

If you can setup AGWPE on a windows box on your network you should be able
to point both ui-view32 *and* xastir at the same AGWPE server and do your
testing that way. If ui-view32 is already on a windows sytem using AGWPE
you can simply point the Xastir client at the AGWPE server that your
ui-view32 system is using and be good to go.

> I'm thinking in the long term, Xastir has
> a strong potential for continuing development, while UI-View, due to
> Roger's unfortunate health situation, may not.

No slight on Roger and I wish him a swift recovery but you are probably
thinking intelligently.

-Tyler