[Xastir] IS to RF igating

[Jason KG4WSV]

> On Mar 22, 2014, at 2:11 PM, Tom Russo <russo at bogodyn.org> wrote:
> 
> Yeah, since that script just takes the raw NMEA strings and tacks on an APRS
> header, it's extraordinarily simple.  

I was going to say idiot simple. :). It doesn't even check for correct checksums, just a simple RE match to make sure it looks like a valid NMEA sentence.  It needs to pick out GPGGA and GPRMC sentence pairs to make a valid APRS position report. 

As Tom says it really needs to be an APRS client implementation to work well.  Kurt is ahead of me in implementing this, but he cheated and used COTS hardware while I've been busy building my own (maybe he's just smarter).  :)

The bulk of the code is rs232 handling that someone else wrote and my hack isn't properly documented to give credit and I don't even recall what the copyright/licensing may have been or where I downloaded it. That's why I'm not really advertising. I don't care if anyone wants to use it for themselves.

With all the rf hardware currently available that's cheap and fast, it'd be nice to have tracking that can keep up.  Even though 2m 1200 baud can't handle it, even the retired d7 can do 9600 baud.

I'm kinda on the fence with my rocket tracking, as current APRS systems can't really keep up - cots rf modules are cheaper and faster and in most cases license free. Still, the applications are more mature, and nothing beats xastir - that's why I try to feed all my tracking data into xastir for consumption. 

-Jason
kg4wsv