[Xastir] Receiving messages

[Tom Russo]

On Wed, May 17, 2023 at 09:42:11AM +1000, we recorded a bogon-computron collision of the <phillor9 at gmail.com> flavor, containing:
> I'm currently in an area with an APRS repeater and so I've been motivated to
> have a play with Xastir again.
> 
> During the past few days I've tracked some mobile stations with a call sign
> that is known to me. Using Xastir, I've sent these stations a message but
> I've never received a reply. The probable reason for no response it that the
> station is unaware that I've sent them a message which brings me to my
> question; how will I know if a station does respond?
> 
> Also, my station shows up in the "all stations" list but not in the "mobile
> stations" list. Under "Configure Defaults" I've selected "Mobile Station
> w/local time".

An inordinate fraction of mobile stations are basically configured as
trackers that don't even display received messages.  Odds are good that you're 
trying to communicate with one of those.

APRS messaging is one of the great underused and underappreciated capabilities.
The vast majority of users have come to treat APRS as nothing more than
a vehicle tracking system (worse yet, as a one-way position transmitting
system with the only receivers of value being the internet gateways and 
web-based APRS viewers).

In my experience, even those who are running mobile stations that *can* receive
messages tend to ignore them (many D700 and D710 users even ignore so many
messages their message buffer is full and their stations just return the code
that says the message is rejected).  Does XASTIR show that your messages
are being ACKed by the target station?  

As for your query about why your station doesn't show up in the mobile stations
list, I can't really answer that definitively.  I tried digging through the 
code quickly to understand how the different lists are populated, but I can't 
spot how it actually distinguishes between mobile and otherwise --- I'm pretty 
sure that it figures that out based on whether the station is transmitting 
course and speed.  Does your mobile station have a GPS attached?

-- 
Tom Russo    KM5VY
Tijeras, NM  

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