PACKET
13
Gateway
In the
KAM
and
KPC-4
a Gateway is also available. This is similar to digipeating except that the re-
transmission of the packets takes place on the other radio port of the TNC from where it was re-
ceived. In other words, if you are on VHF and send a packet via a Gateway callsign of a
KAM
your
packet would be retransmitted on HF, on whatever frequency the radio connected to the
KAM
is
set for. When you use one of these gateways remember that on HF the baud rate is slower so you
may want to lengthen some of your timing parameters. See the KA-NODE section for another way
to accomplish this with a more reliable connection.
The TNC has some parameters that need to be set before this feature can be used. The MYGATE
parameter needs a callsign that is different than any other callsign parameter and GATEWAY needs
to be turned ON. Also keep in mind that gateway operation is not permitted by FCC rules and regu-
lations in an unattended station.
Multi-Connects
The TNC makes it possible for you to talk to more than one person at the same time, if you want
to. A stream (or channel) is used for each conversation. The command MAXUSERS determines
how many streams may be used at one time. And the command USERS determines how many
people can connect to you. An incoming connect uses the next available stream. If the number of
streams set by USERS is full, then that station will get a busy message instead of a connect. How-
ever, if MAXUSERS is set larger than USERS, you can still issue outgoing connects on the additional
streams.
The character specified in the STREAMSW parameter is used to change from one stream to anoth-
er. The streams are lettered A – Z. So in order to change streams you type the STREAMSW charac-
ter and then the letter designator for the stream you want (no return or enter in this case). This
can be done in Command or Convers Modes and the CON and STA lights on the front panel of the
TNC will change appropriately for the stream you choose.
For an example, let's assume I'm using a
KAM
and have my HF streamswitch set to the " \ " and
the VHF streamswitch set to " | ". Now if I want to transmit on HF packet, I simply enter
\a
to
cause my current I/O stream to be the A stream on the HF port. To change back to VHF, I would
enter
|a
to go to the A stream of VHF. The current I/O stream when the TNC is first turned on will
be the A stream of the port specified by the PORT command for dual-port units.
The STATUS command allows you to see who is on which stream, or the status of the stream, i.e.
waiting acknowledgment, connect in progress, disconnected. Turning STATSHORT ON will cause
the STATUS command to list only the current Input/Output stream and any connected streams.
If you are connected and have MONITOR and/or MCON OFF, the normal headers containing the
"to" and "from" callsigns will not be shown. The setting of STREAMEV will then determine how
often you see the stream designator. This parameter comes defaulted OFF, so the stream designa-
tors are only shown when a change in streams occurs. Turning this command ON will make the
stream designators show on every packet. Turning STREAMCA ON will also add the callsign of the
"from" station beside the stream designator.
Round Table Discussions
Several people talking together present a difficult situation for Packet-Radio since the protocol re-
quires two stations to connect in order to make sure they receive each others packets. If you
wanted to be absolutely sure that everyone got everything you said, you would have to connect to
each person and retype everything to each person. That could get a bit cumbersome, so most