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</o:shapelayout></xml><![endif]--></head><body lang=EN-AU link=blue vlink=purple><div class=WordSection1><p class=MsoNormal>Hi Folks,<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>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?<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>By way of explanation for what has lead me to ask the question, here is my tale.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>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:<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoListParagraph style='text-indent:-18.0pt;mso-list:l0 level1 lfo1'><![if !supportLists]><span style='font-family:Symbol'><span style='mso-list:Ignore'>·<span style='font:7.0pt "Times New Roman"'> </span></span></span><![endif]>The PC was connected via WiFi to my router<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoListParagraph style='text-indent:-18.0pt;mso-list:l0 level1 lfo1'><![if !supportLists]><span style='font-family:Symbol'><span style='mso-list:Ignore'>·<span style='font:7.0pt "Times New Roman"'> </span></span></span><![endif]>The Wifi was unreliable and appeared to drop back to one way comms <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoListParagraph style='text-indent:-18.0pt;mso-list:l0 level1 lfo1'><![if !supportLists]><span style='font-family:Symbol'><span style='mso-list:Ignore'>·<span style='font:7.0pt "Times New Roman"'> </span></span></span><![endif]>The NetGear Cable Wifi router appeared to lockup the Wifi port<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoListParagraph style='text-indent:-18.0pt;mso-list:l0 level1 lfo1'><![if !supportLists]><span style='font-family:Symbol'><span style='mso-list:Ignore'>·<span style='font:7.0pt "Times New Roman"'> </span></span></span><![endif]>The Weather beacon was running on a very slow (low powered) VIA based PC and perhaps was dropping packets on the LAN<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoListParagraph style='text-indent:-18.0pt;mso-list:l0 level1 lfo1'><![if !supportLists]><span style='font-family:Symbol'><span style='mso-list:Ignore'>·<span style='font:7.0pt "Times New Roman"'> </span></span></span><![endif]>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<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>Slowly I have been working through trying to eliminate each of these. I have<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoListParagraph style='text-indent:-18.0pt;mso-list:l1 level1 lfo2'><![if !supportLists]><span style='mso-list:Ignore'>1.<span style='font:7.0pt "Times New Roman"'> </span></span><![endif]>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)<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoListParagraph style='text-indent:-18.0pt;mso-list:l1 level1 lfo2'><![if !supportLists]><span style='mso-list:Ignore'>2.<span style='font:7.0pt "Times New Roman"'> </span></span><![endif]>Replaced the Wifi with Cat5 cable again<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoListParagraph style='text-indent:-18.0pt;mso-list:l1 level1 lfo2'><![if !supportLists]><span style='mso-list:Ignore'>3.<span style='font:7.0pt "Times New Roman"'> </span></span><![endif]>Cleaned up the disks and verified free space etc etc<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoListParagraph style='text-indent:-18.0pt;mso-list:l1 level1 lfo2'><![if !supportLists]><span style='mso-list:Ignore'>4.<span style='font:7.0pt "Times New Roman"'> </span></span><![endif]>Updated to the latest versions of software and drivers<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoListParagraph style='text-indent:-18.0pt;mso-list:l1 level1 lfo2'><![if !supportLists]><span style='mso-list:Ignore'>5.<span style='font:7.0pt "Times New Roman"'> </span></span><![endif]>Changed from DHCP LAN Address assignment to fixed IP within my NAT’ed LAN (removes the NetGear router interfering with IP connectivity).<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoListParagraph style='text-indent:-18.0pt;mso-list:l1 level1 lfo2'><![if !supportLists]><span style='mso-list:Ignore'>6.<span style='font:7.0pt "Times New Roman"'> </span></span><![endif]>Changed the interval from 15 to 5 minutes<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>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).<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>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.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>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? <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>Anyone have any thoughts?<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>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.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>Regards,<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>Grant VK5GR<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p></div></body></html>