[aprssig] Routing

[Keith VE7GDH]

Ray VK2TV wrote...

> I seek confirmation (or otherwise) that my APRS routing is/will be set
> up correctly...

As you mentioned, if there is no other digi within 350 km, it's not going to
make a lot of difference how you set up either the IGate or the digipeater.
For that matter, it wouldn't make any difference if you beacon with no path
at all unless the IGate or whatever would be able to reach out further via
your own digi.

With that said, thinking in terms of recommended settings in North America,
no fixed station should have WIDE1-1 in its path. I would suggest that you
set the digi up as a WIDEn-N digi in anticipation of moving it to the better
location even if it is only going to be up a few hundred metres. Everything
else you have in "the shack" could go out with a path of WIDE2-2. For now,
any beacon you send isn't going to make it any further than it can be heard
direct or via your digi, either at its present location or when it moves to
its new home. If the digi 350 km away can hear your digi, you will get one
more hop. I don't know what kind of terrain you are dealing with, but that's
quite a bit of distance. Either the distant digi hears you or your digi or
it doesn't.

If another digi does happen to go between your digi and the distant digi,
you could access coverage and see if you want to go out with a three hop
path (or whatever) or a two hop path. In an ideal world (again thinking in
terms of North America) there would be no-where more than two hops from an
IGate. Realistically, there will be places in your neck of the woods as well
as over here that will either have no coverage or will be more than two hops
from an IGate. Paths, at least until/if we move to NSR (no source routing),
can be adjusted accordingly to either get the desired number of hops or to
reduce it if levels of traffic demand that paths need to be shortened. It
doesn't sound like the APRS frequency will be overly-busy in your location
for a while - hi!

The reasoning for not using WIDE1-1 from a fixed station is so it doesn't
trigger "all" of the WIDE1-1 digis around it when the fixed station
supposedly with a better antenna than mobiles should be able to hit the
local WIDEn-N digi without any help. In your case, you don't have a dozen
WIDE1-1 digis around you, so it doesn't really make any difference. It would
also be nice if folks that were set up for APRS use "in town" didn't have to
change or adjust settings when they were in your vicinity. It would work the
other way around too if you didn't have to change your mobile settings when
you went into town.

I'm sure it has been mentioned on the list before, but is VK-land going with
WIDEn-N digis... i.e. have RELAY, WIDE and TRACE/TRACEn-N been
obsoleted there?

73 es cul - Keith VE7GDH
--
"I may be lost, but I know exactly where I am!"