PCSAT UI-DIGI CALLSIGNS                                    WB4APR
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PCsat was designed to support the generic digipeater aliases of 
"APRSAT" and "ARISS" to set the trend for all space UI digipeaters 
and also the ISS Digipeating mission.  With the new packet system
activated on ISS on 22 Feb, this is now a reality!

UNPROTO APRS VIA PCSAT-1   Use this for all normal PCsat ops
UNPROTO APRS VIA W3ADO-1   Use via PCsat when it resets (see cautions)
UNPROTO APRS VIA ARISS     Use via PCSAT or ISS!

Other aliases currently supported so that users do not have to 
re-configure between Terrestrial, and ISS operation are RELAY, 
WIDE and the ISS ARISS as noted above.


BACKGROUIND:

PCsat was designed to use the generic digipeater alias of "APRSAT"
to set the trend for all space UI digipeaters.  By using "APRSAT" 
as the digipeating MYALIAS for PCsat and all future follow-on UI 
digipeating missions, mobiles would  not have to reconfigure for 
each satellite that came in to  view.  This takes advantage of one 
of the primary features of APRS in the use of generic, instead of 
specific digipeating.  Thus "which" satellite is in view would be
transparent to the end user on the ground in his mobile...

Since all APRS digipeaters support up to 4 UIDIGI Aliases, PCsat 
was flown with these defaults in ROM:

UIDIGI ALIASES:       RELAY,  WIDE,  APRSAT  and  ARISS

The RELAY and WIDE are the universal generic digipeater aliases for 
all APRS digiepaters everywhere and so by supporting these on orbit 
means that the mobile or HT user does not even have to reconfigure 
his mobile or HT between the terreestrial and on-orbit systems.  He 
only has to change operating frequency.

For the last several months, PCsat has supported the ISS path of
NOCALL.  But as of 22 Feb 2002, the new ISS packet system now
supports ARISS so that ISS users can switch  between PCsat and 
ISS without any requirmeent to change their UNPROTO path.

Finally, however, we are also having occasional PCsat resets on the
A side and so the operating call of PCSAT-1 is lost on each reset and
the UIDIGI functions are disabled.  The PCsat callsign reverts to the
default ROM call of W3ADO-1.  Thus, during these periods before the
command station is able to reload PCSAT's operating configuration,
the only digi callsign that will work then is W3ADO-1.

To minimize confusion and assure that high priority users and special
demos can still use PCsat, we have now arrived at the following 
NORMAL operating mode for PCsat.  The UIDIGI aliases that will be 
supported until ISS is squared away are:

UIDIGI ALIASES:       RELAY,  WIDE,  ARISS, and W3ADO-1

This way, priority users can set their UNPROTO path to APRS VIA 
W3ADO-1 and ALWAYS get in no matter what the state of PCsat.  But we 
must ask that this only be used for PRIORITY stations.  All others 
should use either PCSAT-1, RELAY or WIDE.  THis way, they can operate
with confidence that if PCsat is LOADED for NORMAL digipeating, then 
their signals will be digipeated.  But if PCsat has RESET into SAFE 
mode, then PCsat will ignore their uplinks and there is no harm done.

de WB4APR