Mir and
Packet UnProto mode
By Miles Mann
The Mir PMS (Personal Mail System) also supports the Digital repeating mode called UnProto. I am not going to get into too much detail about UnProto, for more information check Amateur radio hand books and back issues of Amateur Radio magazine.
Basically UnProto
is a way of sending packet messages without requiring
an acknowledgment from the other station.
This mode is similar to RTTY in that, you can have
several stations in one big QSO at the same time.
Set your UnProto command in your TNC, on my KAM the syntax
is "U CQ V R0MIR".
Then switch to Converse mode
(enter K at cmd: prompt). Now everything you type
will be transmitted in UnProto Mode.
If the Mir station hears your transmission, the Mir PMS
Digi will rebroadcast your information with
a range of over a 1000 miles.
Below is a short UnProto between a
station in Massachusetts and Alabama, using the Mir Digi.
The stations were arranging to meet on Oscar 13 when the Mir pass
was over.
WF1F>CQ,R0MIR*/V [04/21/93 22:22:09]: <UI>: hi Tim can you work OSCAR 13? N8DEU>CQ,R0MIR*/V [04/21/93 22:22:30]: <<UI>>: Hi miles, yes what freq? WF1F>CQ,R0MIR*/V [04/21/93 22:22:40]: <UI>: 145.895
The UnProto mode does not
guarantee you message will ever be heard, but if the
Mir Digi does rebroadcast your line of text, then you
can be assured that someone saw it.
The line of text you send will be repeated with an Asterisk after
it, "R0MIR*/".
If you do not see the Asterisk, then Mir did not hear your
packet.
UnProto does have its drawbacks,
but it is much more efficient to use on
Mir than the Direct two-way connect method.
Full two-way packet connects via the Mir PMS
are not recommended because they use up too much resources
and excessive "Retries".
Before you try Unproto on Mir, I recommend that
you practice on a Terrestrial Digi first before attempting
to use the Mir station for Digi-repeating. If
you make a few UnProto calls and do
not get any echo's back from Mir, it is probably
because UnProto is turned off or because of a
collision.
Occasionally the System
Operators may turn off Unproto (Digi = OFF) to improve the Mail
Box traffice flow.
The Mail box access should always have top priority over
other traffic.
Also there is a good time and a bad time to use the UnProto mode with Mir PMS.
Do not use UnProto when:
The only real
safe time to use UnProto, is when the Mir PMS is in its 2
minute time-out mode.
This time-out is caused when the station connected to
the Mir PMS is out of range and cannot log out of
Mir. No one can log into PMS Mail
box (R0MIR-1) until the connected
station times out.
Time-outs are the best time to use UnProto. Before
using UnProto, monitor Mir's down link to see
who is using the PMS Mail box port "R0MIR-1".
If you do not seen any Index packets from Mir PMS to the
ground station using to the "R0MIR-1" port for 60
seconds, you can assume the connected station is out of range of
the Mir PMS and its "UnProto time".
The shorter the Unproto sentence, the greater your success of a PMS repeat. Long sentences may get clobbered by other stations. If you are in the middle of an Unproto QSO and you see someone connect to the PMS Mail box "R0MIR-1", you should end your Unproto QSO and let the Mail box users have access to the PMS.
Good luck and lets be courteous to
everyone.
Remember,
Only 1 station can connect to Mir's PMS at a time, and try avoid
using UnProto when someone is actively using the PMS.
March 13, 1998
G. Miles Mann
WF1F @ K1UGM.MA
[email protected]