APRX vs. WX3in1 Plus 2.0

[PD2WR Danny]

Hello all,

I have been struggling for a while with the following: I have been running an (TX) iGate with APRX for quite some time now. Recently someone in the area bought a Microsat WX3in1 Plus 2.0 (I still don't understand why, but everyone has his right to tinker with the hobby :)) and since he turned on that device, all APRS packages that he receives are going through his iGate. Even when I'm in front of my house. How could this be?!

Best regards,

Danny

[Patrick Domack]

He just has less latency from rf to internet than you do. This could be do to many reasons. Serial port speed. Internet upstream speed. Server you are connected to. Normally it is if you hear it direct or not and serial port speeds.

[Liz]

Sadly Danny, you don't own the packets!
It is confronting when someone else sets up an iGate (there is now one
intermittently on air about 5km from my home) but it is there to back
up when mine isn't operating as well as it should.
A good network does have some redundancy.

You could of course try to streamline everything, fiddle with your
system, and get into a competitive mode.
On the other hand, you could take a more sanguine approach and let it
be.

Liz
VK2XSE

[MJ Inabnit]

I've had it happen here too.

The problem for our area was the other station was an RX only gate which
killed all text traffic into our area. aprs servers would route inbound
packets to the rx gate where they would die.

I also had considerably better gain than the other station. So the
system still got packets out.

I did reset the config and that took care of the issue. The other
station was mostly just tinkering which is completely okay with me. I
hoped we might pool our resources, but he must have moved or at least
shut down his system.

My advice, see if you guys can combine the coverage.

good luck & 73

j

--

wishing you well
Jaye, ke6sls--via the toshiba w/thunderchicken

[Jason Buchanan]

I've seen the same behavior and narrowed it down to a few things (including responses by others):

1.  my Kenwood TH-D72A connected via USB serial to APRX decodes significantly faster than my TNC-Pi board (both using the same Raspberry Pi).  In my experience the TH-D72A + USBserial + APRX has superb APRS RX and TX reliability and performance.  

2.  packet latency between your QTH and your upstream server + your upstream server latency to the core/backbone adds up to hundreds of milliseconds.  ping a few servers and try one with lower latency, then add it above your current entry and see what happens.  You can have multiple servers in your configuration; one that you prefer and another as a fallback if the first server goes offline, etc.  Look at the other guy's peering path and connect to the same upstream server he's using hi hi

3.  aprsdirect.com and aprs.fi show different perspectives for packet arrival based on their ingress proximity to the backbone - can help troubleshoot around the deduplication

vy 73 Jason N1SU

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[Danny]

Luckily, I am not alone. ;) 

1. I think my problem is here. I’m using an old PK232MBX in KISS mode and APRX is running on a Linux VM machine. That’s probably not as fast in processing as a WX3in1+. I will soon be experimenting with a barebone server and other TNCs (hardware and/or software). 

2. My ping is from the VM machine quite fast. Yesterday I had a latency of about 6ms to the NL server. To the server he was using was about 9ms.

3. I experienced that too. For the sake of simplicity, I keep APRS.fi as the lead. :)

Best regards,

PD2WR Danny

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[Patrick Domack]

Kiss is going be an issue. It has to receive and buffer the packet and then resend the packet over serial. Using 6pack is ideal but not supported by really anything. This can easily add an extra 300ms of latency. Vs something that is doing the deciding and directly sending the packet to the internet.

As someone else said. USB serial can help get around a lot of this delay as to not being limited to baud rate, while not having to redesign everything.

[PD2WR Danny]

Thank you all for the replies! I (still) consider myself as an APRS n00b, but I understand how it should work as a network. Why I ever started an RX iGate is because there was blind spot around my hometown. I filled that gap perfectly. That is why I don't understand why someone uses a Digipeater (he digipeat every packet he hears) 24/7 with most likely a knitting needle as an antenna, because the range is not great.

Anyway, I have been experimenting in the meantime. Now I run Direwolf as a sound modem / virtual TNC (instead of the PK-232MBX) and APRX on a barebone PC (instead of a VM). I could only do it with Direwolf, but I love how APRX works. I can now compete with the Microsat. Most of the packets around the my hometown go by me and sometimes by him. Next experiment will be the same setup, but with a Raspberry Pi and TX capabilities (for messages and beaconing).

Best regards.

Danny