[aprssig] Xastir or WinAPRS questions

[Jason Winningham]

On Jan 5, 2007, at 5:02 AM, M J wrote:

> I would like to double-click on the symbol for a weather station  
> and have a dashboard popup, displaying the weather data graphically.

I'm an xastir user, so I'll try to give a partial answer.

xastir doesn't have the sort of popup you're talking about .  You can  
request information of a station and get it (textually) in a dialog  
box.  You can also configure xastir to display weather information as  
text in a cluster around the icon on the main display, so data for  
_all_ stations would be visible.

> Same item for moving objects (but about the ability to see a  
> dashboard of their GPS reported data).

Again, no eye candy, just the facts.  Actual lat/long would be  
reported in the station information dialog.  Information such as  
speed, heading and altitude can be displayed adjacent to the icon.   
The "quick" display of lat/long is simply the icon's position on the  
map, no need to clutter the screen with that.

> As a followup to that from a recent thread, I understand that both  
> encoded and raw NMEA data can exist on the APRS network.  Is raw  
> NMEA decoded and treated like encoded data in these programs?

It's more accurate to say that certain NMEA sentences are valid APRS  
report types.  You can't just inject NMEA sentences into a port meant  
for TNC data and expect anything positive to happen.

xastir (and most any other APRS app) does have the capability to  
receive NMEA data so it know where it is, and will generate proper  
APRS packet based on NMEA data.  It will also allow xastir to  
correctly calculate distance and bearing from you to other stations.   
(Of course, if you're at a fixed location to can type in your  
coordinates, or simply drag your station to the correct spot on the  
map, without the need for a GPS.)

> PS: Since I'm receive only, I'm wondering if maybe someone has  
> developed a web-page that I could hit to provide the same  
> information without having to load software on my computer?

www.findu.com has  several methods for displaying data that has been  
gated to the APRS-IS system.  For example, here's my truck:

http://map.findu.com/kg4wsv

Here is a weather station not too far from me, both a map display:

http://www.findu.com/cgi-bin/find.cgi?call=WB4YPW

and a weather data summary:

http://www.findu.com/cgi-bin/wxpage.cgi?call=WB4YPW

Hope this helps.

-Jason
kg4wsv