KA-NODE
22
KA-NODE
General
The Kantronics KA-NODE is part of your TNC, which provides users with local acknowledgments of
packets, rather than the "old" style end-to-end acknowledgment previously required when connect-
ing to distant stations. This feature is useful when connecting to distant stations and generally re-
sults in a significant increase in data throughput. If you connect to a dual-port Kantronics
KA-NODE (the
KAM
or
KPC-4
) you may also "gateway from one port to the other using the com-
mands described under "Using a KA-NODE". This would allow a VHF user to access HF Packet fre-
quencies by using such a KA-NODE. Each packet you send to a KA-NODE is acknowledged by that
KA-NODE and also passed to the next station in the path. Since the data has been acknowledged
from your station, any retries which are required due to collisions or other conditions will be auto-
matically performed by the KA-NODE.
Frequently when connecting to a distant city, you may wish to talk to more than one station. Per-
haps when you connected, you got a message saying "I'm not here right now, please leave a mes-
sage in my PBBS". By using the "S(tay)" option when telling a KA-NODE to connect to another sta-
tion; the KA-NODE will not disconnect from you if it receives a disconnect from the distant station,
instead, you will receive a message from the KA-NODE saying
###DICONNECTED BY
(call)
AT
NODE
(MYNODE)
. In other words, if I connected from Lawrence, Kansas to a KA-Node in Lincoln,
Nebraska, and then told that KA-NODE to connect to someone using the command
C
call
Stay
, and
then that station sent me the above message and disconnected, I would remain connected to the
KA-NODE in Lincoln! This allows me to issue a connect directly to his BBS, without having to re-
establish the entire path. In multiple KA-NODE paths, each time you say B(ye) to the distant KA-
NODE, this would return you to the next previous KA-NODE which had been told to "Stay" in the
chain of KA-NODES. From that point, you could build a path in a different direction. One point to
note here, is that if you use the KA-NODE to connect to a BBS (W0RLI or WA7MBL for instance),
and use the STAY option, than say B(ye) to the BBS, you would remain connected to the KA-NODE
closest to the BBS. If you issue the connect without the STAY option, any disconnect from either
end will cause the entire link to disconnect.
The KA-NODE checks the passage of data through the node and if no activity occurs for some pre-
selected time (see KNTIMER) then the KA-NODE will disconnect both sides of the node.
Configuring Your KA-NODE
In order to set your Kantronics TNC for use as a KA-NODE, several conditions must be met. First,
you must allocate the number of circuits you wish to allow through the KA-NODE (see NUMNO-
DES). Each circuit consists of an "IN" and an "OUT" side. Secondly, the callsign assigned to the KA-
NODE (see MYNODE) must be different from the callsign used for either you (see MYCALL and
MYALIAS) or the PBBS (see MYPBBS) and gateway (see MYGATE). If desired, you may set the the
NDWILD command ON. This will cause your KA-NODE to accept a connect request to any SSID of
the MYNODE callsign, except those mentioned above. Packets passing through your KA-NODE are
monitored unless your MYNODE callsign is included in the SUPCALLS list and SUPLIST is turned
ON. If it becomes necessary to disconnect a station from your KA-NODE, you can issue the com-
mand DISCONNECT MYNODE from the local terminal connected to your TNC.
Each KA-NODE circuit allowed will require approximately 4.3 k of memory, with a maximum of 13
circuits in a
KPC-4
with 64 k RAM. If you attempt to set NUMNODES to a value requiring more
memory than available, you will receive a message indicating that the value is out of range or not
enough RAM. The total number of circuits which may be allocated will also be affected by the
amount of memory allocated to the Personal Mailbox.
