PSK31 server by G4IDE sk

'Getting Started' Notes for PSK31svr by Roger Barker (G4IDE sk)

PLEASE NOTE - IN MY OPINION PSK31SRV, WHEN RUNNING AS AN APRS SERVER,
SHOULD NOT BE USED ON ANY FREQUENCY USED FOR NORMAL PSK31 TRAFFIC.

1. Read Why Did I Write It? and have a look at The Main Window.

2. Setup PSK31Srv.

3. Connect the PC to the radio, see Making Connections.

4. If you've got an HF radio, have a listen around 14.070Mhz and practice tuning in some PSK31
transmissions. Really all you have to do is to click on the yellow lines in the waterfall, and you should
soon be decoding data. You can try giving some stations a call, or calling CQ.
NOTE - at this stage you do NOT have UI-View32 connected to the server! If you do, then you'll run the
risk of sending APRS data on an inappropriate frequency.

5. Set your radio to the frequency and mode on which you want to test PSK31Srv as an APRS server.

Setting Up UI-View32

1. In UI-View32, go into APRS Server Setup, and in Select A Server put localhost:3131. If you've got a TNC connected, don't check "Open the gateway", or you'll gate other traffic to PSK31Srv.

2. Go into Station Setup, and set your station information. Try and keep it to the minimum. Note that you
can send just an IARU locator as your beacon if you blank latitude / longitude and put your locator as the
comment, e.g. [IO92XX]. Your PSK31 beacon interval is set by Internet beacon interval.

3. If you think you might be sending APRS messages via PSK31, then go into Miscellaneous Setup and
increase Message Frack to at least 60 seconds (even that might not be long enough).

4. On the UI-View32 Action menu, select "Connect To APRS Server". After about 15 seconds, your beacon
should be transmitted by PSK31Srv, and after that at whatever interval you set in Station Setup. Your status
text should also be transmitted. Any traffic heard will be passed from PSK31Srv to UI-View32. PSK31 has no
concept of a frame, so packets are transmitted using pseudo AX25 frames, exactly the same as on the internet.

Using PSK31Srv With Other APRS Applications

You can use PSK31Srv with any APRS application that can connect to a TCP/IP (internet) server. All you need
to do is to configure the application to use server address localhost and port 3131. Then run PSK31Srv, do
whatever you would normally do in your APRS application to connect to an internet server, and you should
connect to PSK31Srv. Be careful about the other settings in your APRS application! You should try and
remove as much of the beacon comment as possible (it's not really necessary to tell the world that you're
running WinAPRS V2.x.x every time you transmit a posit ;-). Also, be careful about gating RF traffic to the
server, PSK31 is slow, and you could easily create a situation where it is permanently transmitting!

NOTE - Other APRS applications may not give you as much control as UI-View32 does over what is sent to
the server. Also, it seems that at least one APRS application - APRS+SA - will disconnect from a server if no
traffic is seen within a certain period (I've been told it's one minute, but that could be wrong). Obviously there
will often be periods much longer than this when no APRS/PSK31 traffic is seen, and so APRS+SA will
presumably be continually disconnecting and reconnecting.

Why Did I Write It?

There was some discussion in the TAPR APRSSIG mailing list about the possibilities of using PSK31 with
APRS. I had a look at the mode, and was instantly impressed by its performance, so I decided to put
together a system that would allow UI-View to send and receive data using PSK31.

By implementing it as a TCP/IP server, it should be possible to use it with any APRS program that can
connect to an internet server.

I'm well aware that this is not the type of use for which PSK31 was intended. I don't even know whether it
is a good or bad idea, I regard it purely as an interesting experiment. (Note the word experiment!)
So please don't anyone start telling me why I shouldn't have done it!

PLEASE NOTE - IN MY OPINION PSK31SRV, WHEN RUNNING AS AN APRS SERVER,
SHOULD NOT BE USED ON ANY FREQUENCY USED FOR NORMAL PSK31 TRAFFIC.

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You can download a ZIP archive which contains the initial release and an update here:
http://f5vag.nerim.net/files/pskserv.zip