[Xastir] Tx IGates was help

[Lee Bengston]

On Sat, Dec 17, 2011 at 5:29 PM, Tom Russo <russo at bogodyn.org> wrote:
> On Sat, Dec 17, 2011 at 10:18:36PM +0000, we recorded a bogon-computron collision of the <davekh at gmail.com> flavor, containing:
>> I never have   inet > rf  enabled   that would mean all the inet traffic
>> would get transmitted out onto RF - I wouldn't want that.
>
> No, it wouldn't.
>
> INET->RF only gates to RF messages that are directed from a station heard
> by your igate only on APRS-IS to a station that your igate has heard on RF.
>
> In addition, you can configure it to gate traffic from specific stations from
> APRS-IS to RF, but by default it does not do this.
>
> Gating "all the inet traffic" to RF would be a disaster, and there is no
> recent vintage software that would do that no matter what buttons you click.

When I first started using APRS client software, I also avoided
checking boxes that allowed gating from IS to RF.  Initially I was not
aware that the standard behavior was to gate only messages, but I was
well aware of the Internet being a big fat pipe as opposed to the 1200
baud RF channel.  Based on the exchange above, I thought it might be
worthwhile to copy this list on Bob Bruninga's message from September
19th, 2011 regarding Tx IGates, which is shown below.

What Bob proposed for symbols for Tx Igates has been adopted - at
least by those who saw the message below and the ensuing discussion.
Still there are only about 35 Igates out there using the T& symbol.
In Xastir, it took me a few tries to figure out how to configure the
symbol in the GUI. (Didn't catch on at first to the double-click)
Under File > Configure > Station, you double-click the field labeled
Group/Overlay, and change it to a T, then double-click the filed
labeled Symbol and change it to an &.  You can also edit your
~/.xastir/config/xastir.cnf file when Xastir is not running.  Near the
top, change the lines for group and symbol as shown below:

STATION_GROUP:T
STATION_SYMBOL:&

Of course, only do the above if you really are a transmit IGate, and
your path is set to 1 hop.  One hop would be the desired setting for
most areas - Bob's message below shows how he feels about more than
one hop :-)

Regards,

Lee - K5DAT


---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Bob Bruninga <bruninga at usna.edu>
Date: Mon, Sep 19, 2011 at 11:39 AM
Subject: [aprssig] Identifying TX Igates
To: TAPR APRS Mailing List <aprssig at tapr.org>
Cc: aprs at yahoogroups.com


All IGate operators please read and consider action on this proposal.

RX-only IGates kill the functionality of the APRS-IS as a universal system!
And they give casual observers the impression that APRS has global
connectivity, when in fact, that view has lots of invisible holes because of
RX-only IGates.

Compounding this problem is that we have no way of knowing if people are
using the right symbol for their IGate.  Are they using "I" because it is
really  a TX Igate, or just because it seems logical?

Using http://www.findu.com/cgi-bin/symbol.cgi?icon=Iamp&limit=2000 I see 960
"I&" Igates
Using http://www.findu.com/cgi-bin/symbol.cgi?icon=Ramp&limit=2000 I see 130
"R&" Igates

Maybe we need to have a 3rd symbol, a "T" Overlay so that operators of
serious two-way IGates and indicate their dedicated intent to provide good
APRS-IS local service.  These guys will take the trouble to indicate a TX
Igate.  When we see one of those, we have proof-positive that the IGate
includes a two-way TX capability.

We could even go one step farther.  We could indicate the NUMBER OF HOPS
that the IGate uses by default for IS-to-RF packets.  This could help us
better manage overlapping IGate coverage...  So how about this plan:

I& - is an IGate, but is ambiguous with respect to transmitting
R& - means it is definitely an RX only IGate
T& - Means it is definitely a TX IGate with one hop path only
2& - means it is a TX igate clobbering two hops in all directions
3& - means it is a TX SPAM GENERATOR , (or a legitimate special case)
Etc..

Should we do this???

Bob, WB4APR