[Xastir] KISS, Xastir and processing data

[Tom Russo]

On Tue, Oct 18, 2011 at 02:14:03PM -0400, we recorded a bogon-computron collision of the <kc4lzn at gmail.com> flavor, containing:
> I've been running an I-gate (KC4LZN, acting as a fill-in digi/igate) for a
> couple of weeks now, mostly in support of a bike marathon to be run over two
> weekends here in Central Florida with the end of it coming this next
> weekend. This was to support the local hams performing communications to the
> various safety stops throughout the county.
> 
> I've noticed that some of the data coming through my station doesn't appear
> to be gating the proper information. I don't have a second receiver and/or
> computer with another program to compare it to. I am trying to find out if
> anyone else has experienced strange stations being reported with KISS and
> Xastir? One station will be traveling along with the proper call sign and in
> mid stream it may change a letter or even an SSID on the next report and
> then the next report will be correct.
> 
> I've corresponded with Dave, KG4YZY at aprsfl.net through which my station
> is connected to and he has confirmed that it is being reported through my
> station/TNC.
> 
> Has anyone else experienced this using Xastir/KISS? I've ran another TNC and
> another program (UI-View) with no issues from the same location and set up
> but since converting everything over to Linux, that is when it was being
> noticed.
> 
> Please understand, I'm not finger-pointing, just trying to prevent
> being labeled a LID. I love all of what Linux and Xastir has to provide.
> Just want to improve the status of my station.

Pending more info, I'd suspect that Xastir is probably not doing the munging 
of data that you're seeing.  It is more likely an issue between your machine 
and the TNC, or in the TNC itself.  Check cabling, baud rates, etc.  That would 
be my first guess as to where it's going wrong, unless you can watch your 
"View->Incoming Data" and see that Xastir is in fact putting the wrong data 
out to the TNC or sending something different to APRS-IS than it is receiving
from the TNC.

What is your TNC?  How are you cabling it?  What speed is the serial port
to your TNC running?  Is there any common digi that these corrupted 
stations are going through before you hear them and gate them?  Are there
other Igates nearby who are getting the same station without corruption?

Having another set of ears would probably be very beneficial in diagnosing
this.

I have run KISS with Xastir and other software on Linux, and never seen 
this sort of data scrambling.  So whatever your problem is, it's not a
full-blown, generic bug with KISS.  There could be some limited issue with
your set-up, but it's not one we've heard of before.

There was some discussion recently here where a user was seeing his objects
being scrambled with random characters garbled, too, and that he would start
beaconing these scrambled objects as well as his intended objects. I don't 
recall what the resolution of that was.  

My guess then was that a local digi was transmitting corrupted data (possibly 
due to a PASSALL setting) and that his Xastir station was adopting the 
corrupted objects (since it still  had his "from" call in it), and then 
retransmitting them on schedule.  But I don't thing we ever heard back from 
him with a resolution or more data.  This doesn't sound like the same thing 
that you're seing, though.


-- 
Tom Russo    KM5VY   SAR502   DM64ux          http://www.swcp.com/~russo/
Tijeras, NM  QRPL#1592 K2#398  SOC#236        http://kevan.org/brain.cgi?DDTNM
 "One man alone can be pretty dumb sometimes, but for real bona fide
 stupidity, there ain't nothin' can beat teamwork." - Edward Abbey