Configuring an APRS-IS Port

YAAC can communicate with the APRS-IS network on the Internet. To create an APRS-IS connection, click the Add button on the Ports tab of the Configure dialog, then change the Port Type to APRS-IS. The dialog will then appear like this:

The options to be set for an APRS-IS connection are:

• The Internet domain name of the APRS-IS gateway to be connected to. A list of all the world-wide Tier 2 gateway regional aliases as well as the FireNet and CWOP aliases are pre-provided for selection, but any other APRS-IS gateway's domain name or numeric IP address may be typed in as well.
• How long YAAC should attempt to connect to the APRS-IS network before giving up. If the Retry Indefinitely checkbox is not checked, failure to reach the APRS-IS network at startup will cause an error to be reported immediately; if a failure occurs after the connection is up, YAAC will try for up to 50 minutes to reestablish the link and will report each failure. If the checkbox is checked, YAAC will retry forever to reach the APRS-IS network (both initially and upon later failure), and will not display error dialogs when the connection cannot be made. In both cases, the "Internet Lost" and "Internet Restored" events will still be reported if a plugin (such as the Sounds plugin) is available to handle the conditions.
• The TCP port number at the gateway to connect to. The most common port numbers are provided, and 14580 should be selected unless a non-standard port is needed for some reason on a custom gateway. In particular, do not specify port 10152 unless you really mean to get a full-planet feed and have a powerful computer with lots of memory that can handle all the traffic. If you want to use SSL to connect and authenticate to the APRS-IS backbone, use the SSL-APRS-IS port type.
• The passcode to use for logging into the APRS-IS network. If not provided, YAAC will not be permitted to I-Gate RF traffic into the Internet. If the field is left blank, it is assumed that this is to be a receive-only I-Gate connection.

  To obtain a passcode, contact YAAC's author by e-mail, and provide him with your government-issued amateur radio callsign. He will send back the passcode corresponding to your callsign.

• The filter expression for receiving traffic from APRS-IS. If a filter expression is not specified and the standard filtered port (14580) is specified, a default radius filter of 80 kilometers around the fixed latitude and longitude defined for the default beacon will be used, or 100 kilometers around your GPS fix if using GPS data for your station location. If the beacon latitude and longitude are not specified and GPS is not being used, a default radius filter of 50 kilometers around 39°15'N, 76°36'W (the location of the 2011 ARRL/TAPR DCC) will be used. If you do not want any filtering, you must specify a blank filter (one or more spaces but nothing else) for your filter expression; leaving the field empty (not even spaces) implies that you want the default filter.

  The hyperlink below the filter expression text field will launch your default web browser pointing at the official documentation for APRS-IS server filter expressions. The hyperlink below that will bring up the status page for the APRS-IS server you are currently using.

• Whether or not this port can transmit messages into APRS-IS; again, if an invalid passcode for the specified callsign is provided, the APRS-IS network will reject the connection attempt. For receive-only APRS-IS connections, a passcode is not necessary, and a default filter will be provided if an explicit one is not entered.
• Whether YAAC can connect directly to the selected APRS-IS server, or needs to relay the connection through a SOCKS server (only version 5 supported). If a SOCKS server is used, the host name of the SOCKS server (and colon-appended listening port if not the SOCKS default number 1080) must be specified, along with the username and password for logging into the SOCKS server. Note that the present implementation of SOCKS5 support in YAAC requires that the APRS-IS server be identified by a domain name (not a numeric IPv4 or IPv6 address) when SOCKS is used.
• Which of potentially several beacon definitions will be transmitted through this port. If none is checked when the port configuration is saved, the default beacon will be used (and will show up as checked when this configuration panel is next opened). To specify that a beacon should not be sent out this port, a beacon should be selected that is not enabled on the Beacon tab of the expert-mode configuration dialog.

Note that the Test Port button does not work for SOCKS-connected servers.

If both an APRS-IS port and an RF port are opened, YAAC expects to be used as an I-gate (Internet gateway) station. This tutorial explains more about I-gating.

If you want to create a APRS-IS port on a new installation of YAAC using the -createport option, the port_description is of the format:

where serveraddr is the domain name or numeric IP address of the APRS-IS backbone server you wish to use, such as noam.aprs2.net; and port is the TCP port number for the APRS-IS connection at the server, usually 14580. callsign is the callsign-SSID value to be associated with this port to identify your station to the backbone and be used for locally-originated packets sent to this port; if also using RF ports, this should match one of the RF ports' callsign-SSID values. The passcode is the number associated with the callsign that authorizes transmitting to the APRS-IS backbone; if transmission is not needed, this can be -1. txEnabled is either true or false, depending on whether you want to send packets to the APRS-IS backbone. socksParams can be omitted if not using a SOCKS5 proxy to access the APRS-IS servers, otherwise it should be three comma-separated values for the SOCKS5 server address, the username for logging into the SOCKS5 proxy, and the password for logging in. If useSocks is false, socksParams is ignored. filter is the space-separated set of filter expressions used to request additional traffic from the APRS-IS backbone. enabled is either true or false, depending on whether you want this port active. useSocks is either true or false, deprending on whether you want to use a SOCKS5 proxy. if true, the socksParams data must also be specified. The flags are a decimal number of 0 if YAAC should give up immediately if the APRS-IS server cannot be reached, or 16 if YAAC should keep retrying indefinitely until a successful connection to APRS-IS is made (presumably outlasting any Internet service outages).