[aprssig] Mic-E encoding on HF -- does generic SSID path GATE?

[Ben Jackson]

On Sat, Aug 05, 2006 at 01:01:15AM -0400, Stephen H. Smith wrote:
> ben at ben.com wrote:
> >On Fri, Aug 04, 2006 at 02:49:24PM -0400, Stephen H. Smith wrote:
> >  
> >>Nearly all APRS HF receive stations igate received packets directly into 
> >>the Internet system
> >
> >I'm assuming that if I sent a packet with the path GATE (only) and it
> >was IGated by the HF receiver, the raw data on APRS-IS would look
> >something like src>APRS,GATE,qA?,hfgate*:...?
> 
> You are confusing "IGATE" with "GATE" .

Well, not really, I was just going to point out that the HF packets
I'm sending are not being IGated by the HF receiver, based on my
understanding of the 'qA?' markup done by the APRS-IS servers.

> Repeating my last post, the shorter the packet, the more likely it is to 
> be decoded successfully and  considered "valid".

Right, short is good, which is why I am asking about Mic-E encoding.
However, so short that it never gets IGated isn't good.

I suppose, then, that the shortest AND most likely to be IGated path on
HF is, in fact, 'ECHO', since the odds are that any HF GATE listening
is going to be able to hit several IGate-ing HF stations.  Of course
GATE,WIDEN-n is probably less costly in overall airtime.  Ideal would
be no path (as you say) with *just* enough power to hit an HF listener
that can IGate.

-- 
Ben Jackson AD7GD
<ben at ben.com>
http://www.ben.com/