On 5/11/2025 10:35 AM, John E. Malmberg via groups.io wrote:

On 5/9/2025 6:08 AM, Facundo Fernandez-KK4ODA via groups.io wrote:

Hello, I have seen posts of hams using D-RATS with FLDIGI modes
instead of DSTAR. I have tried this with various degrees of success.
It occurred to me that it may be possible to run DRATS with VARA as a
modem.

Finally found this document:

Actually the relevant document is:


73,
John
wb8tyw

On 5/9/2025 6:08 AM, Facundo Fernandez-KK4ODA via groups.io wrote:

Hello, I have seen posts of hams using D-RATS with FLDIGI modes
instead of DSTAR. I have tried this with various degrees of success.
It occurred to me that it may be possible to run DRATS with VARA as a
modem.

Finally found this document:

However, I tried this using the default command port of 8300 with
no success. I know this is a long shot, but has anybody tested this
configuration succesfully?

Obviously I have no experience except from looking at the source code, but D-Rats generally does not send commands to TNCs and other Packet type modems. It assumes that they are already in either the AX25 or the KISS mode and only connects to them over what is presented to D-Rats as a serial device.

For VARA the above documentation says to use port 8100 for KISS mode.
As far as a modem is concerned KISS mode can also handle AX25 packets because in KISS mode just a raw 8 bit stream is sent over the radio.

This should work for AWGPE, as D-Rats seems to assume that the connection can handle AX25 frames, and parses the connection commands from the AX25 frames.

So far I have not found the username and password fields for the AGWPE connector used anywhere.

73,
-John

On 5/9/2025 10:01 AM, David Ranch via groups.io wrote:

I would think that D-RATS could be enhanced to work with D-RATS but it shouldn't be done via the old school KISS interface.? It would need to be done via the VARA native interface.

I have done a bunch of searching this morning and can not find anything that tells me anything about the VARA native interface or the KISS interface.

D-Rats implementation of Winlink seems to be limited to some message passing, not for chat.

D-Rats has basically these major modes of communication.

Repeater, after login, it just sends/receives its DDR2 Yencoded packets over a network connection.

Serial port: It just sends and receives its DDR2 Yencoded packets over the serial link and any radio modem that can pass through serial data will work.

AX25 mode: It sends/receives AX25 packets via the serial port or the AGWPE socket. Inside the packets is a DDR2 Yencoded packet.

KISS Mode: Looks like it just sends and receives DDR2 Yencoded packets through the serial port. Not sure if it can do that with the AGWPE interface.

Yencoding is needed for D-Star radios because the serial port is also used as a remote control for the radio and Yencoding filters out binary that could be interpreted by the radio.

If only sending data over a serial or network link is needed, the hardest part of modifying D-Rats is the way the current configure GUI is implemented and the glade tool that should allow customizing it easily is refusing to cooperate.

73,
-John

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I would think that D-RATS could be enhanced to work with D-RATS but it shouldn't be done via the old school KISS interface.? It would need to be done via the VARA native interface.?? If someone is looking for D-RATS like functionality but for VARA, check out VARAC:

??


It implements a lot of similar concepts in D-RATS, FSQ, etc. The interface is a bit complex but you get used to it.? It and both the VARA-FM or VARA-HF modem programs run fine under Wine for Linux and Mac users.? The tool automates all that installation which makes it a snap.


There is also vARIM tool as well which is very powerful but more complex:

??



--David
KI6ZHD

开云体育

DRATS uses several types of net linkage, including internet and RF. It does not have to speak DSTAR data. Best approach is to start with the most recent version 3.x and play with it while reading through some of the old documentation (in the files section) to get the basic set up. Ask questions here.

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John,?

Hello all,

In doing some research on improving the D-Rats I have discovered a hardware error which seems to be in a number of TNCs.

I have found this documented (not as the hardware errata that it is) in two different PAC-COMM TNC manuals and in an MFJ TNC manual.

If you are generally using only the quick wiring of RX data, TX data and signal common on the packet modems then you should be OK.

If you are using the "non-standard" wiring documented in the TNC manuals they you also should be OK.

But who bothers to read the manuals in detail? And when you see a 9 pin or 23 pin serial port, you may just plug in a standard wired cable like common ribbon base cables.

If you are using a standard full wired cable you could be in danger of burning out the serial port on your computer or causing other damage to the or USB serial adapter.

Someone made a big mistake about those signals and it looks like everyone copied them instead of correcting it.


The TNCs are expecting the custom non-standard cable where the CTS signal from the computer is wired both to TNC CTS signal and the TNC DTR signal. And that the cables do not have anything connected to pins 9 and 10 of a 23 pin connector.

This is not the way that off the shelf standard full signal cables are wired, either have all signals wired straight through or the common MODEM subset of 9 wires wired straight though.


Worse is that TNCs may be incorrectly shorting CTS and DTR signals together inside the TNC, as documented in the PAC-COMM TINY TNC-2 which stated that it is based on the TAPR reference model. That is one of the things that can burn out your computer!

And also that if the cable has a 23 pin connector, that pins 9 and 10 are not connected, since the TNC may be unexpectedly providing power signals to those pins, which are defined in the specification as reserved. This should be ignored, but if the computer is doing something non-standard on those pins, that could cause a problem.


Why this is a problem, is what the standard computer interface is supposed to be doing:

The DTR pin when you are not using the serial port should be setting the DTR and the CTS signal to a value of about +3 to +15 volts.

When a program is running using the serial port, the DTR signal is typically set to about -3 to -15 volts.

The CTS signal when hardware handshaking is disabled should also be set to -3 to 15 volts, but may be left at +3 to +15 volts, which when using a standard wired cable is a short circuit of up to 30 volts.

When hardware handshaking is enabled, the DTR signal stay at the -3 to -15 volts, and the CTS signal can periodically alternate between the positive range and negative range, which is an intermittent short circuit of up to 30 volts.

It is on the expensive computer side where the damage can occur.

There are about 2 to 4 different documented ways (3 wire and 9 wire) that 9 and 23 pin connector serial connectors should be wired that will work 99.9% of all devices.

There are seems to a very small number of devices that need special wiring because the hardware designers did not implement the specification correctly. So far I have only encountered one commercial printer, and some TNC modems that require a variant from a standard cable wiring.

And also because people do not bother learning and following the specification there are hundreds of wiring diagrams on the Internet for 9 and 23 pin serial port connectors, with most of the 3 wire implementations missing jumpers for DSR/DTR and RTS/CTS signals on the 9 or 23 pin connector side.

And now I need to make and keep track of special cables for my older TNCs, so that I can test them in AX25 and KISS modes.

73,
-John
wb8tyw

开云体育

On 4/18/2025 10:34 AM, Daryl Stout via groups.io wrote:

I uninstalled the MobaXTerm, as IObit Malware Fighter said it was
infected. I'm still using the old D-Rats 0.3.9 on my Windows 10
system, and that's the only reason I'll have a Windows 10 setup.

IOBit and other malware scanners are reported to have had false positives with Cygwin.

MobaXterm is based on Cygwin with a more user friendly interface.

I use MalwareBytes free malware scanner as it has been able to find malware that others have not found.

MalwareBytes fixed a false positive on detecting Cygwin as malware in 2020. I have not seen it false positive on Cygwin on any of my systems.

I never heard of IOBit before, but Reddit has a couple of threads on it, and the users there do not seem to have a high opinion of it to put it mildly.

These came up high on a google search of "iobit malware fighter false positive cygwin"

Microsoft screwed things up big time with this recent update to 24H2,
or whatever it is. What they feel is good for the goose is definitely
not good for the gander...and they don't believe in "if it ain't
broke, don't fix it".

D-Rats 0.3.9 is broken in many places, you just have not run into some of the known issues yet.

D-Rats 0.4.x is the only version that is getting any fixes, unless someone wants to figure out how to back port the fixes to 0.3.9.

Regards,
-John

On 3/19/2025 6:15 PM, John E. Malmberg via groups.io wrote:

On 3/19/2025 1:04 PM, Randy-W4LKS wrote:

I tried the MobaXterm install today.? The script fails because BusyBox is not installed.? If you manually install Busybox, then re-run the installer script, it will install.? Maybe add BusyBox as one of the required packages?? Randy

After your post, I updated the Wiki page with the workaround.

A fix has been landed so that new installs should work with out the needing the hack.


Fixes from 0.3.9 version include:

* Data loss over radio links fixed
* QSTs with data from beacons fixed.
* Optional GEOIP lookup fixed.
* APRS Symbols properly converted from D-Rats symbols and display properly on the map.


73,
-John
wb8tyw

Hello all,

Most of you may know this, but it appears that many people do not know how this now ancient thing known e-mail mailing lists actually works.

Mailing lists in the internet have a documented protocol that is known by e-mail programs, similar to how in Amateur radio you have protocols for various message traffic nets.

If you want your questions or new topics seen and properly answered on mailing list including this mailing list, you must *NOT* use the "REPLY" button on your mail client to send the message as a reply to an unrelated message.

Using REPLY for a new topic or a question will get your message to be miss-filed in the past history of old messages. Many of the e-mail programs will "helpfully" hide your message from the people that you want to see it as their default settings, For example the GMAIL application on Android devices, and the Thunderbird E-mail client.

In addition, it will also be harder to find in the archives for someone reading old messages in hopes of finding an answer to a similar questing in the past. The e-mail archive of a list will sort messages and their replies separately and does not use the subject text of the messages for that sorting, it uses a hidden message id code generated by a message.

This is the way that almost all internet mailing lists work, and not something that is unique to this mailing list.

To get your question or new topic seen, you have to use the "NEW Message" or equivalent button on your mail client.

The REPLY button should only be used to provide a comment on a previous message on the mailing list.

It may be simpler to always use "REPLY", but that is not how the mailing list software and the e-mail programs are expecting messages to be written.

73,
-John
wb8tyw