[Xastir] 'Owning' station ID?

[Curt, WE7U]

On Wed, 27 Oct 2004, Rick Green wrote:

> On Wed, 27 Oct 2004, Curt, WE7U wrote:
>
> > Seeing them on RF or on the INET feeds?  INET:  No rules for
> > identification.
>   I'm seeing them on an inet feed.  I don't have an RF interface defined
> right now.

Speaking as one of those generating the "callless" packets
(thousands of them, no joke!), it's just fine on the inet feeds.
Just fine on RF as well, if the igate station is identifying, and he
gates specific stations through that he trusts (like NWS packets
perhaps).  In that case it's the igate station that is responsible
for those transmissions.


>   Looking closer at the station info, I realize that there are also no
> amateur callsigns listed in the Path info, so the reporting stations must
> be connected directly to the internet.

Yep.


>   As an aside, how do I interpret the cryptic codes like 'qaX' that I find
> in the path info?

Those are added by either the igate stations or the internet
servers, and provide info about the type of connection the packet
came from.  There are web pages that describe these codes.

> My own station, which is connected only to the
> internet, shows a path info of 'APX140,TCPIP*' while one of the local
> weather stations shows 'APRS,TCPIP*,qaX,CW0714'.  WHy the difference?

They've already gone through an internet server on the way to you,
so the qaX got added.


> Hey  If
> I were to put up an antenna and an RF port, might I be on shaky ground wrt
> third-party traffic if I enable inet->rf gating?

Xastir by default will only gate validated ham stations through, and
only their messaging and ack's.  If you want to gate other stuff
through you have to specifically tweak a file to add the NWS
stations or other callsigns.  You're pretty safe.


> > If on RF, are you sure they're not sending another ID broadcast
> > (perhaps via no hops) or have the callsign in the comment field?
> > Either of those if perfectly legal.
>   Or they could be sending CWID periodically, but that does no good beyond
> the local RF range.

Satisfies FCC requirements though.


> I wouldn't want to put up a digi that would repeat
> any transmissions that don't clearly identify their source as an amateur
> station call.

People often set up tactical callsigns on trackers, then send their
callsign every 10 minutes as a separate broadcast or in the comment
field.  Actually, a CWID every 10 minutes from a tactical callsign
tracker is perfectly legal as well.  Just because people that are
not within direct RF range won't know who that station is, doesn't
mean that it's not useful or legal, annoying as that can be when
you're the one trying to figure out who owns it!

--
Curt, WE7U			         http://www.eskimo.com/~archer
"Lotto:    A tax on people who are bad at math." -- unknown
"Windows:  Microsoft's tax on computer illiterates." -- WE7U
"The world DOES revolve around me:  I picked the coordinate system!"