NWAPRS serves: Alberta, British Columbia, Northwest Territories,
Washington, Oregon, Idaho, and Montana

The WIDEn-N paradigm settings are an attempt to optimize the APRS network using the currently available hardware. There are certainly better ways to build an APRS network, but until we can get the hardware needed to do the job in place, the NWAPRS group is suggesting that these settings be used.

One of the main sources of duplicate packets was the use of the alias RELAY in paths. In some areas, where the main digipeater receive coverage is shadowed, it is necessary program fill-in digipeaters to "boost" the low powered mobiles up to the main digipeaters.

The path setting of RELAY,WIDEn-N is no longer supported.

The fill-in digipeaters that used to be programmed to respond to RELAY did the job that was asked of them very well. However, it is what happened in the main digipeaters that caused a problem. The alias RELAY was implemented by a simple callsign substitution routine with limited anti-duping capabilities. The packet then was acted upon by other digipeaters responding to the WIDE2-2 alias. This alias is implemented by a different anti-duping routine. This routine doesn't know about anything that happened via the RELAY alias. Because of that fact, we can end up having duplicates of packets bouncing around.

By changing the fill-in digipeater alias from RELAY to WIDE1-1, we still have access to all those fill-in digipeaters that are needed. However, when within range of the main digipeaters, they will respond to the WIDE1-1 alias, adding the packet to the anti-duping list. The second alias again is acted upon by the same routine, so the digipeater knows whether it has digipeated the packet via the first alias already.

This is where the real "magic" of the new WIDEn-N paradigm happens.

To make the change to the paradigm settings, you simply need to change the alias RELAY to WIDE1-1

In the Kantronics TNCs, it is suggested that you enable that support by using the following commands:

BLT 1 E 00:30:00
LT 1 !4720.20N112320.45W#PHG5660/W1 Fill-In SouthBend K7GPS       (the "1" will make a green star with 1 in it, for Fill-in digi)
                                                                                                                       (Geocoord format is DDMM.mm that's tenths of minutes, not seconds)
LTP 1 APN382      (modify for your version KPC-3: 3=KPC-3     82=eprom version 8.2)
UIDIGI ON WIDE1-1 
DIGIPEAT ON 
UIFLOOD % (disabled) 
UITRACE % (disabled) 
MYALIAS % (disabled)

For non-Kantronics TNCs that do not have a UIDIGI routine, simple WIDE1-1 support can be enabled by: MYALIAS WIDE1-1