[aprssig] Short paths in APRS packets

[Greg Clark]

Thanks guys -- sounds like I'm getting "lucky" the way it's working
now, I'll dig up my copy of the specs.

-- Greg

On Tue, Oct 27, 2009 at 9:53 AM, Wes Johnston, AI4PX <wes at ai4px.com> wrote:
> You'll need to know the nuts and bolts of ax.25 if you are building the raw
> frames (packets) that would be sent/received from a TNC in KISS mode.  If
> you look at the text output, all TNCs perform some (ahem) readability
> enhancements by chopping off the padded space characters in callsigns
> shorter than 6 characters.  The SSID is stored in a separate byte and the
> TNCs append a "-" and the number to the end of the callsign.  So there is no
> "-" in the callsign portion of the ax25 header.  The SSID is a whole 'nother
> byte.
>
> Also, there is a difference in the way that KPC brand TNCs and TAPR derived
> TNCs mark the "has been digipeated" flag.  I can't rmeember which way it
> goes but one of them marks each digipeater path element as digipeated, the
> other kind marks only the /last/ digpeater element.  You have to be tolerant
> of this when you write code to accept these frames off air.
>
> A word of caution when dealing with KISS frames.  Once you construct your
> ax25 frame you'll have to check it for $c0 characters.  If one appears in
> the frame you have to use the FESC and FEND characters to transpose it.
> Otherwise the TNCs will think you are at the end of a frame just because $c0
> appears somewhere in your data.  Then you send $c0, $00 (or port number -
> which is usually 0 anyway) <your packet here> $c0.
>
> Wes
>
> On Tue, Oct 27, 2009 at 11:46, Greg Clark <K7RKT at bigredbee.com> wrote:
>>
>> I have two questions regarding building up AX.25 packets.
>>
>> 1) If the "path" fields are shorter than 7 characters, what do they
>> get padded with. Spaces?  Nulls?  Most "common" paths don't have this
>> problem, since WIDE3-3 is seven characters.  I'm trying to configure
>> my tracker for use with the ISS using the paths ARISS and SGATE, and
>> I'm not sure what to put in the two remaining bytes when I build the
>> packets.  I'm asuming this field is fixed in length at 7 characters.
>>
>> 2) What about the '-' in the path WIDE3-3, is it really a 'dash' in
>> the packet? or is it a "space".  I'm pretty sure that at this point in
>> time, I'm sending a "space", but not sure if that's the correct way to
>> build the packet.  It does, however, seem to be working properly as
>> is.
>>
>> Yes, I am aware that everything needs to be shifted left by one  bit,
>> and the last entry in the string of paths has the least significant
>> bit set.
>>
>> Thanks,
>>
>> Greg K7RKT
>>
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>
>
>
> --
> Wes
> ---
> God help those who do not help themselves.
>
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