John,
See interspersed answers/comments below....
svkaereste wrote:
Nice to text with you yesterday. In my mind this is the way messaging should work on APRS. Easy and fast.
Agreed. I've had similar APRS messaging exchanges with others on APRS
mobiles as well. The key (no pun intended) is to have a suitable
display and input device. In those cases it was with a Tracker2
attached to a Garmin Nuvi 350 for APRS messaging. Good RF coverage and
bi-directional IGates are also required for that to work smoothly.
Couple of problems I am having though, which may be a problem with my particular phone: HTC Touch, Sprint
After I load the file and unzip it: under password, there already is a "-1" filled in. Is that supposed to be there and my generated pass code should be put in before or after that? Or should I just type over it. It doesn't seem to make any difference.
The default password of -1 is for a read-only connection to APRS-IS.
You should delete it completely and put your own password/passcode in.
If you have an incorrect password, your position updates will not be
accepted by properly configured APRS-IS servers. However, it turns out
that the default configuration files sent out for javAPRSsrvr were not
originally requiring authentication, so you might be connecting to one
of those. As the configurations get updated, the proper password for
your callsign will be required.
Sometimes when I go back to check my "configure", my own password code is displayed already in the Filter box. It is difficult to clear, either I need to type anything over it, accept that then type spaces over the jibberish I typed in and rehit accept.
Your password should not be showing up in the Filter box. If it is,
I've got a bug somewhere. I'm not quite following your description of
clearing it, but if you simply click the cursor to the end of the field
and type backspaces, it should clear. This is, of course, assuming a
keyboard and/or touch screen that allows you to do so.
You can always edit the APRSISCE.XML file that should be located in My
Documents in a plain text editor to make the change as well. Only do
this when the client is closed or your changes will be lost when the
client writes out an updated copy on closing.
I don't always get the text messaging available. When I go to FindU I sometimes see the text tests I'm sending to another radio, but not always. Have I set something incorrectly?
You can always double-click on the N/A (or callsign, if you've received
a message), or use Menu/Messages/Send Message to bring up the message
sending dialog. Clicking on a station checks the APRS data types being
transmitted by that station to determine if messaging is supported. If
so, APRSISCE offers you to send a message. if not, you can only dismiss
the station information dialog.
I need to get after the Tracker2 and TinyTrak4 folks to allow users to
configure their message support. These particular trackers support
messaging but only with a suitably connected Nuvi GPS (for the Tracker2)
or a display and PS/2 keyboard (for the TT4). However, neither tracker
currently has the ability to specify that messaging is supported.
Of course, the messaging capabilities of KISS-interfaced TNCs is
entirely dependent on the software on the other end of the KISS link.
I realize this is a BETA, but I can really see how neat this will be when it's completed. Great work.
Thanks. I use it all the time as KJ4ERJ-12 (my AT&T Tilt) and now as
KJ4ERJ-15 (on my Vista laptop). I'm always open to suggestions on
making it better and/or more usable on different platforms, so please
don't hesitate to point out problems or ask for new features!
Lynn (D) - KJ4ERJ - Author of APRSISCE for Windows Mobile
