next beta build #211 of YAAC ("Yet Another APRS Client"), created 2025-May-13

downloadable from


In addition, the YAAC import of the OpenStreetMap database snapshot as
of 2025-May-05 has been imported and posted on the website for download.

changes and updates include:
1. fill in more missing Javadocs for source code SDK.
2. move some main() methods that are actually unit test code out of
production YAAC into the unit test code (which will also guarantee
the unit test code will actually be run by the Maven build tool
and can be run from the Ant build tool).
3. add special case to digipeater and Tx I-gate logic to not forward
a text message packet to RF if the addressee is specifically the
local station (as opposed to a group the local station subscribes
to).
4. re-organize the extremely lengthy View menu to use sub-menus to
make the main menu shorter so it doesn't fall off the bottom of
low-resolution screens (since the authors of the Java runtime
didn't choose to make long menus automatically scrollable when
they don't fit on the screen). Restructure the help documentation
to match.
5. add support to more position-dependent filters to support non-APRS
position reports (such as from the TAK plugin).
6. add support for the "d/" APRS-IS filter in the supplemental transmit
filter expression.
7. augment the local traffic filter to have a new setting for only RF
packets transmitted by transmit-capable I-gates.
8. change the filter for entering callsigns and callsign-SSID values
to prevent out-of-range names (too many characters, non-digit
SSID values, etc.).
9. fix NullPointerException breaking the object editor window.
10. show comments of non-re-received local Objects in station/object
list.
11. try to fix bugs when saving alternate beacon definitions.
12. fix broken DFS (Direction Finding Status) parameters for beacons.
13. update map icons to be more consistent with OpenStreetMap's
standard amenity type icons and add icons that were not formerly
in YAAC.
14. add more map node types to the OpenStreetMap importer, including
information from the shelter_type, tower_type, and social_facility
tag types.
15. improve the documentation about what files to download from the US
National Weather Service for displaying severe weather zones.
16. fix sender callsign bug when transmitting locally originated packets
on a multi-port system.
17. mark suspect hard-coded digipeat paths for query responses.
18. improve Locate->Amenity display to display the number of occurrences
of each amenity type on the current map, and make it sortable.
19. fix labelling in line-of-sight plot.
20. try to fix layout of message sender controls on map window when used
on a low-resultion screen.
21. fix bug when transmitting no-digipeat-alias packets.
22. fix postal address plugin to more efficiently export the collected
postal database, and generally access the database tables more
efficiently, better connect up new JDBC drivers to the running
system (still a little flaky), interface to the existing YAAC
popup windows without breaking if the database is down or a
matching postal record doesn't exist, display street address
lookups more effectively.
23. tweak pseudo APRS-IS proxy server to also fix digipeat-less packets.
24. fix dynamic objects plugin to use reorganized View menu, fix
handling of imported GPX files where not all waypoints had
symbol specifications.
25. fix repeater finder plugin to use reorganized View menu.

Greetings.

I was going back over old emails to ensure I had all the reported bugs dealt with for the next build, and realized I had only answered half of your question.

The reason you only have street map data up to a certain point is that is the default area of maps that will be downloaded by the configuration wizard. If you want more, go to the menu choice File->OpenStreetMap->Download Pre-Imported Tiles, and select the area for which you want to download tiles, as a center point (defaulting to the center of your map window at the time you open the download dialog) and a radius. YAAC will then reach out to my website and download the latest tile files I have posted that cover the circular area you specified.

It is possible to have the entire planet's worth of data, but that is several gigabytes of data, and most people don't need it beyond a couple hundred miles except for HF APRS and mobile users.

You can also click a checkbox in the expert-mode Configuration dialog to cause YAAC to automatically download any missing tile files for areas you try to display. This is off by default to keep mobile users from having response errors (if they don't have mobile Internet) or from running up their cellphone bill (if they do).

Hope this helps.

Andrew, KA2DDO
author of YAAC

________________________________________
From: [email protected] <[email protected]> on behalf of Niece KA1ULN via groups.io <ka1uln1@...>
Sent: Friday, April 11, 2025 12:37 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: [yaac-users] HF APRS. raspberry pi OS - not seeing all maps

i have been investigating HF aprs. for a few months now and have not been able to see map outside my very local area: and it is constant - no changes

1. HF APRS -yaac. 1.0-beta202
2. direwolf
3. raspberry pi os (rpi5)
4. do have gps
(see current screen shot)

what do i need to do to see anything different… and moving?
[cid:[email protected]]

开云体育

If you're not getting anything from that filter, then the app is probably using Mic-E position format, so the tocall will be the longitude encoding rather than the software type code.

So you'll probably need to use the buddy filter
b/W9JUN*

Not the uppercase callsign (callsigns are supposed to be sent in uppercase), and the trailing asterisk to match all SSID suffixes of your callsign. The example you showed before (with a "-i" suffix wouldn't have matched because SSID values cannot be letters; they have to be digits.



________________________________________
From: [email protected] <[email protected]> on behalf of Don via groups.io <donpjr@...>
Sent: Thursday, May 1, 2025 7:52 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: [yaac-users] APRS.fi

u/APFI* (added to the aprs-is port)

Greetings.

The first thing you need to do is try one more time, then immediately exit YAAC and privately email me the YAAC.out file in your YAAC log directory. This file contains all unhandled error messages reported by YAAC, so it will hopefully show what the problem is.

Andrew, KA2DDO
author of YAAC

________________________________________
From: [email protected] <[email protected]> on behalf of SV?SGS via groups.io <sv0sgs@...>
Sent: Thursday, May 1, 2025 1:14 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: [yaac-users] Changes In Beacon Settings Cannot Be Saved!!

Hello! I have installed YAAC on several systems (Win, Linux, Pi-OS) and have the same problem Any changes I make in the Beacon settings cannot be saved! And yes, I push the "save changes" button and close out the dialogue properly. I created a new beacon, "SV0SGS". That seems to be the only change that was saved.

I checked the boxes "enable station beacon" and "report altitude."

I changed the display symbol and added a monitor frequency.

I changed the free text to "nothing to see here."

I then saved the changes and closed out the dialog using the "close" button.

When I reopened the configuration dialogue I saw that all my changes were NOT saved. I repeated the procedure several times and got the same results.

This is very frustrating, to say the least. I have wasted too much time on this.

Where is the problem and how can it be fixed?

[cid:[email protected]]

开云体育

1. Rendering color, transparency, stroke style, and stripe width.
2. Whether the route is enabled for use by dynamic objects (dynamic objects can "snap" to the nearest point on the nearest route).
3. Whether the route is looped (course continues from last point to first point like a racetrack).
4. Whether the route is persisted in the YAAC configuration.

Please specify exactly what filter you specified, and where in the YAAC UI. Syntax errors in the filter expression will cause the APRS-IS not to send anything, and specifying YAAC display filters will exclude traffic you are receiving from being displayed.

________________________________________
From: [email protected] <[email protected]> on behalf of Don via groups.io <donpjr@...>
Sent: Thursday, May 1, 2025 8:16 AM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: [yaac-users] APRS.fi

[Edited Message Follows]

Good evening

When I add the APRS-IS filter, the data stream stops. When I look at the raw packets, there are no lines of data, and the map stops updating. BTW, that’s for any filter I add.

Greetings.

Core YAAC doesn't preserve drawings, although it can be configured to preserve locally created APRS Objects. It is common to create private Objects (don't get transmitted) to mark things like rest stops for an event.

However, the Dynamic Objects plugin can persist its routes, which can also be loaded from GPX files. So if you install that plugin, then load your bike ride GPX as a route, you can mark it to be persisted.

Hope this helps.

Andrew, KA2DDO
author of YAAC

________________________________________
From: [email protected] <[email protected]> on behalf of RileyC via groups.io <rufus.rizzo78@...>
Sent: Wednesday, April 30, 2025 11:48 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: [yaac-users] Load Drawings on startup

I want to share how much I like YAAC and love finding new helpful features.


Our Club does SAG(safety patrol for bike rides) and communications. I'm working on ways to make it easier for less savy Net Control operators to use YACC more often, when I'm not there. I looked around and didn't find a solution, so I thought I'd ask.

Is there a way to load ".gpx" files when YAAC starts?

Does the flag "dont.purge.temp" keep the previously loaded Drawings?

Thanks!

Riley
Kf4emz

Hi, Scott.

Bear in mind that PHG data is not describing the same thing as DFS data is, so what they display is not related.

PHG estimates the range an APRS station can send and receive simplex based on the station's transmitter power, antenna height above average terrain (HAAT), antenna gain, and octant of directionality of the antenna. Usually, an APRS station's antenna is an omnidirectional one, so you see a circle centered on the station whose diameter is calculated from the power, HAAT, and gain; if the antenna is directional the PHG approximation circle is offset in the specified octant direction (0, 45, 90, 135, etc. degrees from True North) where the antenna would have the most gain (on the boresite, rather than off to the side or behind the directional antenna).

DFS instead is about how well a station _hears_ one other specific station. There is no generic DFS; the stations participating in the direction-finding have to agree on what station they are reporting about, and if there are two groups of stations in an area both using DFS reports on the same APRS frequency, the display will be somewhat useless.

DFS can be reported in two different ways:

1. If the reporting station actually has a precision directional antenna (beam Yagi or an electronic phased-array) so it can precisely report a station-relative bearing to the target, the NRQ data can be used to specify the bearing to the target from the local station, and quality information about how the target was heard. YAAC can decode received bearing/NRQ data, but is not set up to help in entering such data for transmission. The station must be using the Direction Finding symbol (\/) so listening stations know that NRQ data will be included in the position report. The NRQ data appears after the reporting station's position, course, and speed, then the bearing and NRQ, for example:

010/020/045/123

where 010/020 says the reporting station is traveling on a course of 10 degrees from True North at 20 knots (nautical miles per hour), and its directional antenna is hearing the target at 45 degrees from True North with 1 number of detections, range code of 2, and signal quality of 3. YAAC plots the bearing cone from the reporting station (beamwidth inversely proportional to antenna gain), so you can look for intersections.

2. If the reporting station does not have a precision directional antenna, it can approximate the relative location of the target by reporting the signal strength the target was heard at (in S-units), and the characteristics of the reporting station's antenna (same as PHG without the transmitter power). YAAC will use this information to plot a color-coded (based on the reported S-unit) coverage circle around the reporting station where the target probably is. One reporting station isn't very useful, but if you have a collection of reporting stations, you can look for where the multiple coverage circles are overlapping together and look for the intersection; obviously, this works best if you have several reporting stations in a rough circle around where the target is. Any APRS symbol can be used for the reporting stations.

Note that you will see _nothing_ added to the other map information if there are no reporting stations actually transmitting precision bearing and NRQ or imprecise coverage circles (DFS).

Hopes this helps explain how APRS direction finding is reported and works.

Andrew, KA2DDO
author of YAAC

________________________________________
From: [email protected] <[email protected]> on behalf of Scott Gillins via groups.io <scott@...>
Sent: Sunday, April 27, 2025 10:52 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: [yaac-users] Direction finding settings don't seem to save in beacon configuration

Thanks for the reply. I have several stations around me that are announcing PHG values, however when I turn on the direction finding layer I expect to see something different on the map. What should I expect to see?

Thanks,
Scott

On Sat, Apr 26, 2025 at 7:17?PM Andrew P. via groups.io<> <andrewemt@...<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
Hi, Scott.

Thank you for finding a bug in the beacon configuration panel. It will be fixed in the next build of YAAC.

I'll have to think about your other suggestions. I agree, being able to quickly edit specific DFS values (after observing the RF conditions of the remote signal at the local station) would be useful. I'll have to think of a user-convenient way of doing so.

Andrew, KA2DDO
author of YAAC

________________________________________
From: [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> on behalf of Scott Gillins via groups.io<> <scott@...<mailto:[email protected]>>
Sent: Thursday, April 24, 2025 1:10 AM
To: [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>
Subject: [yaac-users] Direction finding settings don't seem to save in beacon configuration

Hey all,

I have been trying to understand some of the direction finding extensions of ARPS. I have specifically been reading from the APRS101 document starting on page 28 for the PHG and DFS data. I believe that I should be able to set this in a beacon settings. This data should then be displayed and calculated if I turn on View->Layers->show direction finding.

I can set some data for DFS in the beacon settings, make sure to save the settings. When I beacon I do not see the data in the packet and when I go back into the settings for the beacon all the DFS options are back to turned off. It does not seem to save things. The PHG settings seem to work.

[cid:[email protected]<mailto:cid%[email protected]>]

Also a nice feature would be to have beacon button have a pull down where you could just hit the button and send what is your default beacon or chose one of the other beacons you have created or maybe a new option under message or query where a new window would open up with the PHG and DFS options and the ability to send a one time beacon with direction finding data.

If anyone has experience with these features I would love to talk with you.

Thanks,
Scott - W2KP

No, the "o/" filter is for object names (for example, marking a rest stop on a public service event).

You would want the filter "u/APFI*" which would match the tocall for the aprs.fi iOS app.

the full list of available filters is at


Hope this helps.

Andrew, KA2DDO
author of YAAC

________________________________________
From: [email protected] <[email protected]> on behalf of Don via groups.io <donpjr@...>
Sent: Sunday, April 27, 2025 11:40 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: [yaac-users] APRS.fi

Since it has been a few years, this may be wrong.

I've added b/w9jun-i o/aprsfi-iOS