[Dxspider-support] AGW Packet Engine

[Saul B. Dinman]

RE: [Dxspider-support] AGW Packet Engine-----Original Message-----
From: dxspider-support-admin at dxcluster.org
[mailto:dxspider-support-admin at dxcluster.org]On Behalf Of Mike Lewis
Sent: Tuesday, February 12, 2002 6:01 PM
To: 'dxspider-support at dxcluster.org'
Subject: RE: [Dxspider-support] AGW Packet Engine
Importance: High


  Saul,

  I am running AGW under Windows 98, on a older CPU. I unfortunately cannot
help you with your question, I don't know the answer. Seeing as how you are
running a Windows config though, I thought maybe you could help me try to
understand a couple problems I have been having that I have as of yet gotten
no satisfactory explanantions for.

  1) As I have posted to this list previously, I have a problem on my
cluster where the RF link seems to 'hang', and data is not sent to the
distant station properly. Sometimes an extra return sent by the connected
station clears the condition, and sometimes the connection is completely
frozen, with the missing data sent out only after the connected station
forces a disconnect. My configuration is as a single node, not connected to
the internet, only running as an RF only cluster on a local 2m frequency. I
have now run with 2 different TNCs in KISS mode with AGW, (PK-232 and a
MFJ-1270), as well as 2 different radios with no apparent effect on the
problem. There are no error messages from the spider cluster software or the
AGW that I can see. Have you ever experienced this?
  [Saul B. Dinman]  I have, but on BPQ nodes in the past. Have not noticed
it on AGW software, but I have noticed that Spider appears to hang a port
sometimes because it's actually retrying up a storm. Have you noticed large
numbers of retries on one or both ends of the RF connection? That's what
prompted my question about AXD and TXD. I have seen this excessive retry
problem here and I know from older packet-days that those 2 parameters can
fix the problem.

   2) Do you have any documentation on the Kantronics host mode used in a
KPC-3? I have access to this TNC from a friend and was thinking of trying it
out.
  [Saul B. Dinman] If I'm not mistaken, I think AGW prefers to use KISS mode
with the Kantronics line. The KPC-3 works fine with AGW in KISS mode, but
beware; The setup commands in the AGW documentation are incorrect; I think
he was using "INIT KISS" when it should be IN KISS for the KPC3. The former
won't work. The RESET command he uses following this fine.

  3) I would like to make the system able to send out an infrequent ID
beacon on the frequency. Do you know how to make this happen, either with a
KISS TNC or a Host mode Kantronics?[Saul B. Dinman]  It does send an ID
beacon, but it's controlled  by AGW, not the tnc. If you look through the
agw ini files you'll see the beacon stuff there but you can also find it in
the setup screen for agw. The beacon stuff is stored in a txt file and
referenced in the agw setup stuff. Mine also sends a cw ID if inactive for a
long period.

  Thanks for any assistance,

  73 de KE0MF

  Mike Lewis



  In general: AGW's "adaptive fiddling with tnc parameters makes me nervous.
I don't actually know if he tries to optimize settings for AXDelay an
TXDelay or not. I know the software fiddles with other AX.25 parameters. If
I set something into them via the port ini file I don't know whether his
engine readjusts them or not. I did send one email to him and never received
a response. In that email I told him that he had the incorrect command for
putting a KPC3 into Kiss mode and I may have offended him. That was
certainly not my intention but I noticed no correction information has
appeared on his web site since then. From reading some of the stuff on their
web site, I gather they do not favor any Kantronics TNC's.

  73, Saul Dinman, K1BI



-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://www.tobit.co.uk/pipermail/dxspider-support/attachments/20020213/bb3cdfbf/attachment.html