Station Screen

List:

The list (above) is currently sorted by the time of packets last heard from each station in descending order. This is the default sort. However, you can click on any heading and the list will be resorted. Clicking on the header again will reverse the sort order (ascending to descending and visa versa). The header of the sorted field will be displayed with a yellow background with an arrow indicating sort direction as indicated above.

On the bottom, the Src: is currently set to TNC: Com Port 1. This will change depending on whether or not you are using your TNC or the internet to gather data. If you use the net then Src: might be "arizona.aprs2.net:14580" or whatever URL and port number you specify on the setup screen.

Max Sta: 500, Well, originally I had the maximum number of stations hard coded into the program. However, when I was testing the limits of this I noticed that even with a Pentium III 933 MHz machine things were bogging down with this set to much higher numbers. So, I settled on a hard coded 500. Then it occurred to me that folks would be using this with slower machines and so, on the setup screen you can set a maximum number of stations to be tracked. The program will always keep track of the Max Stations by their last heard order. In that way, the oldest stations will scroll off the list.

Buttons

If you click on All Packets button it changes to unique packets and only packets with different content in the information field of the the current packet as compared with the previous packet heard will be saved and analyzed. In other words, packets digipeated multiple times will only be  recorded once. There is a 15 second window associated with this command. If a duplicate packet comes in after an interval of 15 seconds, it's considered a NEW packet and counted.

Click on AutoUpdate On and it changes to, what else, AutoUpdate Off. And the screen is not refreshed. However logging is still happening in the background. You can click on this and scroll up and down in the display without it updating on you and thus losing your place in your perusal of the stations.

If AutoUpdate is set to Off you can click on the Refresh button and a one time refresh of the screen will occur.

Station Detail:

Here is where you can see everything the program knows about the last packet (or packets) received by a particular station. The order of the stations matches that of the List tab. So, you can quickly sort the stations by Weather, Mike-E, GPGGA or any other column and come to this screen and see the data.

Just click on any station in the list to the left of the screen to see the accumulated data for that callsign.

Be aware that this data is accumulated using multiple packets and so, the data isn't necessarily accurate at the current time. IDs, Beacons, etc. all come packaged in their own packets that arrive separately from some of the position packets. I've included time stamps for some of the data. There is no time stamp for the position data because it can be spread across multiple packets arriving at different times.

In the above example, N7ZEF-2 is the selected station. You can see how many total packets have been sent over the network with that callsign as the ORIGINATING callsign (if he acts as a DIGI it's not counted, he's just relaying). Regardless of the "All Packets / Unique Packets" switch on the second tab, the program keeps track of duplicates and it indicates that (in the above example) of the 6 packets heard at my station, 6 were considered unique packets.

The first heard entry is the time the program first heard a packet from this station.

The last heard entry is the system time of my computer when the last packet was received.

Packets per hour is calculated by the previous three data points.

In the Last packets box, the Packet Time Stamp is the time that was included with the last packet received. Some APRS packets include time stamps, others do not. If it's in the received string, the time is posted here.

The Originating Station type will attempt to indicate what process/program was used to create the packets. Not all individuals properly set this value when building beacon text strings for their TNCs to run in stand alone mode so it may or may not indicate accurately.

Power, height, gain and direction will be filled out if that data accompanies a station's reports.

The Mike-E message is a standardized format message available with Mike-E encoders and Kenwood D7 and D700 radios.

The Packet Path is the path as last heard on the air.

Packet Text is the text of the last packet (not including callsign or digi path).

Beacon text shows the text of the last beacon received.

ID Text shows the text of the last ID packet received.

The position Data box contains pretty obvious stuff.

On the setup screen you can enter your home latitude and longitude. The range and bearing are computed from your QTH to the station. Bearing is in True Degrees, range is in miles.

All speeds in APRS are in Knots (except Wx). I've converted them to Miles per hour.

GPS altitudes are in meters. They are converted to feet for display.

Note: If you want to track a station that is beaconing out GPS strings you need TWO strings to get all this information.

$GPGGA includes latitude, longitude, altitude and time (other stuff too).

$GPRMC includes latitude, longitude and course and speed and time.

The proviso here is that the values for all of these variables will change each time a new packet is received. So, unless the tracker is beaconing out both strings almost simultaneously, values will not necessarily match.

I've noticed some folks beacon out GPGGA alot. and only occasionally a GPRMC so, course and speed for each new GPGGA packet is lifted from the last GPRMC and thus might not agree. You might see someone parked in their garage, and the course and speed says 270 degrees at 70 MPH.

I may add time checking to this in the future and allow you to pick some interval within which you will accept data from the two strings and consider the data valid and matched.

The extracted WX info is self-explanatory except perhaps for the timestamp. That value is the time as indicated within the wx packet received.

Adding Stations to the Logging List

The logging capabilities have recently been updated. A new web page has been created to detail the use of the Logging Stations Screen.

Adding Stations to the Alert List

On the setup screen you can specify a WAV file to be played if a particular callsign comes into the TNC. If you click on Alerts on the Station Screen Menu, this little form will open. Type in any callsign you wish to monitor. When Aprs Net Spy hears that station on the packet network, the wave file is played. I don't include any wav files. Check your Windows/Media folder for some possible candidates. The program does NOT play MIDI files, just wav files.

In the above example, I entered my entire callsign and I started typing KB0TVJ's callsign. If you just hit enter now or the add button, then KB0TV would go into the alert list. All of these callsigns are essentially wild cards. Meaning, N0KKZ, N0KKZ-1, N0KKZ-7 would all sound the alert. Likewise KB0TVJ, KB0TVJ-5 and even KB0TVA would sound alerts.

The program does NOT sound the alarm repeatedly when digipeated packets arrive. There must be a 15 second gap between the last time the station was heard and the current time it's received for the alarm to sound.