APRStest.EXE for Special Features                   5 Aug 2004
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APRSdos distribution now consists of two main programs:

   APRS8nn.EXE  the full up APRSdos but limited to 100 stations

   APRSxnn.EXE  A version to capture upt to 300 stations but
                but with some of the rarely used things removed.

But there are still things I want to do on occasion and so
I am putting those into a progam called APRStest.exe.  You can
run it for a while, do some of the special options and then
go back to normal APRS for routine.  Here are the special
comands in APRStest:


OPS-SHOWaloha:  This command will compute the distance to all
stations and then draw YOUR ALOHA circle for your station
showing the radius from your station that contains a workable
number of APRS stations (typically about 60 that APRS can support
on a 1200 baud channel).  If you are getting stations from
outside your ALOHA circle, then they are QRMing your area and
colliding most of the time with local more valuable traffic.
We must educate people to CUT BACK on their path to their
own ALOHA circle.  Anything else is QRM to others...

MAPS-PLOTS-HOPS:  This command will first SORT all stations
by their PHG Height and then search through the DIGIPATH page
and compute the number of hops to each DIGI.  Then plot
them according to color and # of hops.  This display is
VERY REVEALING:

   1) It shows you how far away and how many hops some DIGIS
      are sending their POSITIONS inorder to be seen in YOUR
      area.  Many of these you just don't need to see the
      QRM.

   2) Band openings really show up with some short hop counts
      to some far away places

   3) The # of hops shown is the number of hops that that digi
      took to get its POSIT onto your screen.  For you to send
      your packets back to be seen in its area, you need to add
      ONE to the #.  But PLEASE, do not use WIDEn-N to reach
      anything more than say 2 or 3 hops.  instead choose a
      "named path" to communicate with someone in that area,
      Not flooding 100 digis in all directions..

NOTES:  If you have not done a OPS-SHOWaloha, then the first time
you do a MAPS-PLOTS-HOPS an ALOHA will automatically be done.  But
remember, this is computed ONLY for the stations in your P-LIST.
If you have done something like deleted a lot of home stations
or mobiles to clean up the MAP, or loaded a different .BK file
then your new ALOHA will be erroneous.  So the ALOHA circle only
has meaning if your P-LIST truely represents EVERY STATION on the
air on your 144.39 channel.


OTHER COMMANDS useful for making the above displays more useful:

MAPS-FEATURES-CALLS-NONE:  This will toggle off callsigns to
      make the display cleaner

PLIST-SELECT-DEL:  I used this to delete most of the home stations
      and other clutter so that my APRStest could make sure that
      it did not overwrite any digis and so after a fw hours I
      was sure to have captured all digis.  During this period
      I made sure that the 300 size limit didnt get filled up
      and just kept deleting non-digi stations and then saved the
      file as DIGIS.BK.  That is the file that you will get in
      this distribution.  But it only applies to Baltimore...

Here is how I routinely get a good DIGI plot of the HOPS and also
get an uncluttered map but that does show the correct ALOHA circle
for my area:

1) Load your biggest .BK file or let your system run for hours
2) Do an OPS-SHOWaloha to get the real ALOHA size for your location
3) Now delete all non-digis and FILE-SAVE the file as your own DIGIS.BK
4) Now turn off calls
5) Now do the MAPS-PLOTS-HOPS

Any time in the future, you can reload the full size file and do
the OPS-SHOWaloha and then FILE-LOAD the digis and the old ALOHA
value will be used on the display.

Enjoy
Bob Bruninga, WB4APR
