[aprssig] Two More Tier 2 Servers for your use!

[Phillip B. Pacier]

tvsjr at sprynet.com wrote:
>> Tier 2 now has 38 servers in 17 countries worldwide to acommodate all of 
>> your APRS IS needs.  And despite the messages you may see on certain 
>> databasing websites stating that Tier 2 servers are unreliable, the 36 
>> sysops are dedicated to serving the worldwide APRS public.  Our 
>> reliability speaks for itself - over 1100 happy users!  Feel free to 
>> connect and enjoy the APRS-IS experience!
>>     
>
> It's way past time to quit with this vitriolic crap every time you post anything to this list about Tier 2 and the rift with the primary servers.
>   
I'm not sure what you are talking about.  Nothing in the above message 
references any rift with the "primary" [core] servers.  I believe you 
are speaking about times that are years past, though I do hesitate to 
hazard a guess at what you are thinking.  To my knowledge, there is no 
public or private rift between any server sysops.
> This list is likely where a newbie user is going to end up if they start seeking information about APRS. I was a newbie myself a few years back, and this is where I ended up to get some basic information. Newbies who read this kind of crap are, at the least, going to get confused... at the most, they're going to sign off the list, set their radios to TRACE7-7, and proceed to "abuse" the RF network.
>   
The only confusion comes from newbies or any other users logging on to 
certain website and seeing rhetoric and false statements posted about 
certain servers versus others.  I think you should be equally upset 
about the situation I am referencing.  This statement I made clears up 
confusion - the Tier 2 servers are as reliable and usable as any 
others.  I'm not sure how you figure anything in the above statement is 
going to cause anyone to set their paths to TRACE7-7 (and even if they 
did, does your digi still respond to TRACEn-N?  I thought that was 
eliminated years ago... Perhaps you need to check your settings...)
> Remember guys, this is ham radio... it's supposed to be *fun*. If it's all about politics and pissing on each other, perhaps you should consider your involvement... maybe take up stamp collecting, I hear that's low stress?
>   
Stamp collecting is a sticky situation at best. I prefer public service, 
thank you.
> I can't profess to having done anything major for APRS... I'm just a lowly user (well, I did shuttle an APRS server from Dallas to College Station - whoopee). However, I subscribe to this list to try to keep current on the latest recommendations for paths, radio configuration, etc... not to listen to the server sysops arguing over who has the biggest wee-wee. I suspect I'm not the only "lowly user" 'round these parts with the same opinion. We'll see if things change - I'm about 1 inane post away from unsubscribing. I've threatened it in the past... and things have calmed down since. Your comments are simply throwing fuel on the fire and are completely unnecessary.
>
> Oh, by the way, you might want to check your config at westtn and the upstream routers. A 10-ping burst to several servers resulted in the following (min/max/avg):
> first - 5/7/5 (0 lost)
> second - 48/48/48 (0 lost) 
> westtn - 78/214/147 (1 packet lost)
> The variability in ping time may well indicate a problem or an overloaded link. All pings originated from a server sitting in a tier 1 data center.
>   
Thank you for your observation.  While I cannot duplicate this error 
from two other data center sources I used to test, I suggest you use one 
of the other 37 Tier 2 servers if you are having a difficulty with this one.

73
Phil Pacier - AD6NH