[OZAPRS] OZAPRS Digest, Vol 42, Issue 1

[Grant]

Tony,

Considering that before changing to second.aprs.net.au from
rotate.aprs.net.au the data was flaky - and after it has been rock solid, I
cant really see that it is such a problem with aprs.fi's connections to
Australia.

The problem for me really points to something flaky with the
"rotate.aprs.net.au" address.

The key for me was the previous post by Liz. I will be changing to the
aunz.aprs2.net address tonight to see how it fairs. If it works 100% fine
too then I think I can point the finger at rotate.aprs.net.au in as far as
how it is perceived from a Bigpond cable modem.

Regards,
Grant

-----Original Message-----
From: Tony Hunt [mailto:wavetel at internode.on.net] 
Sent: Sunday, 6 January 2013 7:18 PM
To: ozaprs at aprs.net.au
Cc: vk5gr at bigpond.com
Subject: Re: OZAPRS Digest, Vol 42, Issue 1

Grant,

Your assuming that the connection is good between aprs.fi and the Australian

servers. Its not. Its a proven fact that theres packet loss at times between

our part of the world and servers like aprs.fi and findu.com . Ive seen 
hours go by in times past where the track of a vehical is just missing on 
findu and aprs.fi although it was gated properly to the net and also seen by

others logged into the same server via the net. It appears there are times 
that the international connections (offshore) get pretty flakey. Thats ok if

your surfing the net because your browser or email just takes a bit longer 
on that route until it resolves but with the aprs servers the packet is lost

and then its just lost and if you want to see if the server got it then it 
just didnt get there because you guessed it, it was lost.
We have previously had discussions about having regionalised mirrors for 
things like findu and aprs.fi as these servers basically cop the full 
international load. The chances of seeing any locally based mirrors/servers 
appear soon does not seem like its going to happen.

If your still not 100% sure the problem is not at your end then try setting 
up a different machine to monitor the situation. If you can organise a 
independant 3G connection on a laptop to monitor it then great. Try logging 
the laptop into the same server as your wx station and see if you loose any 
data at the same time as you find lost data on aprs.fi happening. You could 
also log the laptop into a different server and see the efffect.
try these . You will find that first and second are one of the same. Where 
first/second is currently feeding the Tier2 system via T2HUB4 
http://69.39.33.165:14501/  and third is feeding via T2HUB1 
http://193.190.240.226:14501/
You could try the ZL servers as well first.aprs.net.nz as they may take 
different routes to get to aprs.fi via Hawaii to LA perhaps. Many of our 
routes leave Australia via Singapore Japan and Asia.

http://first.aprs.net.au:14501/
http://second.aprs.net.au:14501/
http://third.aprs.net.au:14501/
http://first.aprs.net.nz:14501/
http://second.aprs.net.nz:14501/

Tony Hunt VK5AH wavetel at internode.on.net

----- Original Message ----- > Date: Sat, 5 Jan 2013 15:51:38 +1030
> From: "Grant" <vk5gr at bigpond.com>
> To: <ozaprs at aprs.net.au>
> Subject: [OZAPRS] Problem with rotate.aprs.net.au address?
> Message-ID: <000a01cdeb04$89dd7140$9d9853c0$@com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
>
> Hi Folks,
>
>
>
> As I have put in the subject here, I am wondering if there is a problem 
> with
> the way the rotate.aprs.net.au address is working?
>
>
>
> By way of explanation for what has lead me to ask the question, here is my
> tale.
>
>
>
> For some time I have been having problems getting my weather station
> (VK5GR-1) which is connected via the Internet to have its packets reliably
> picked up by the APRS net (and in particular be displayed on www.aprs.fi).

> I
> was beaconing every 15 minutes, and would sometimes see no frames appear 
> on
> aprs.fi for several hours, and at times days.  I originally put it down to

> a
> number of factors including:
>
>
>
> .         The PC was connected via WiFi to my router
>
> .         The Wifi was unreliable and appeared to drop back to one way 
> comms
>
>
> .         The NetGear Cable Wifi router appeared to lockup the Wifi port
>
> .         The Weather beacon was running on a very slow (low powered) VIA
> based PC and perhaps was dropping packets on the LAN
>
> .         The eCumulus software I was using doesn't hold up the 
> connections
> permanently (unlike UIView) and the slow PC was taking too long to
> re-establish the IP connection for the software to send the data each time
>
>
>
> Slowly I have been working through trying to eliminate each of these. I 
> have
>
>
>
> 1.       Removed all ancillary programs from the PC (I didn't replace it 
> as
> previously it has run on this machine fine for about 2 years)
>
> 2.       Replaced the Wifi with Cat5 cable again
>
> 3.       Cleaned up the disks and verified free space etc etc
>
> 4.       Updated to the latest versions of software and drivers
>
> 5.       Changed from DHCP LAN Address assignment to fixed IP within my
> NAT'ed LAN (removes the NetGear router interfering with IP connectivity).
>
> 6.       Changed the interval from 15 to 5 minutes
>
>
>
> It was this last step that started to see some positive results. This made
> me suspicious. So, I then looked at the server address I was connecting to
> and have now moved it back to second.aprs.net.au and set the interval for
> now at 10 minutes. Since doing this yesterday morning, I appear to have 
> not
> missed a packet! Even through the weather PC and the router both got a bit
> toasty with the 44deg C day we had (the rooms they are in are not air
> conditioned here).
>
>
>
> The only significant change I made that made an impact to the packet
> reliability was changing from rotate.aprs.net.au to second.aprs.net.au.
>
>
>
> So while I am still not convinced it isn't something at this end (most
> likely with the crappy netgear router), I thought it significant enough to
> ask - is there something unique about rotate.aprs.net.au that could be
> impacting things?
>
>
>
> Anyone have any thoughts?
>
>
>
> I am working to actually place the entire weather station permanently back
> on RF soon but would like to keep a reliable output weather stream in the
> meantime making it into the APRS-IS network to monitor conditions here as 
> we
> head through next week's heatwave.
>
>
>
> Regards,
>
> Grant VK5GR
>