[Dxspider-support] Incoming hop count vs. hop_table.pl

[Dave Hawes]

One of the DX Spider nodes that I administer has an interesting hop 
count problem.  It is running Build 59.340 on Linux.

This is a US node with a European link partner and a US link partner.

The European partner is sending PC16 protocol messages with a hop 
count of H1.  I would normally expect that the H1 hop count would be 
decremented by 1 to H0, and therefore this PC message would expire.  
However, the PC16 is in fact forwarded to the US link partner with a 
hop count of H1.  It is important to note that H1 is the value set in 
the local hop_table.pl for PC16s to that node.

Although the example above uses PC16, the same behavior exists for 
PC17 and other incoming PCs with hop count set at H1.

So, the question:  Why does the incoming PC message with hop count of 
H1 not expire?  Does the existence of an entry in hop_table.pl 
supersede the normal control of "incoming" PC messages, even if they 
were to expire locally?  Is this a bug?

Sorry, that was more than one question, but they are all related.

Any help or guidance would be appreciated, as we are trying to 
properly control the flow of PC messages, hence the arrangement for 
incoming PC16s (and a host of others, as well) set to H1.

Dave N3RD