Hi, although  my raw packets are being reported by APRS.FI, and that I'm active, positions and stations that have clearly been decoded on my RF port are suddenly not being shown under "Stations heard by N7TTQ-9" nor "Stations which heard N7TTQ-9".  Identical stations heard identically up to the 29th were fine, then nothing.  I must have hit a button somewhere.  Mind you prop has not been good in the last few days but for example VA6ATA-1 I clearly have heard and have even messaged but doesn't show up as being heard by me nor vice versa.  

Does anybody have any ideas?

Thanks.
Jeff

I saw folks on the forum on the APRSIS website complain about this last year but I saw no resolution, by the way.  Whatever they did/didn't do, I did.

From https://aprs.fi/doc/guide/aprsfi-info-pages.html

Stations heard by X, and stations which heard Y

aprs.fi collects monthly summaries of digipeater and igate statistics. The info page shows both a table of digipeaters and igates which heard the given station, and (if the station is a digipeater or igate) which other stations where heard by that station. The most recently updated entries are shown using a larger font.

These statistics are usually somewhat correct, but there are several caveats, and as you've probably heard – there are lies, damn lies, and statistics.

• The APRS-IS network that feeds the APRS packets from the igates to aprs.fi does duplicate suppression. Only the first gated copy of a packet traverses the entire network. All other duplicate copies seen within 30 seconds after the first packet are dropped by APRS-IS. A packet which is heard by multiple igates normally gets credited only for a single igate.
• A lot of digipeaters do not add their own callsign in the packet's path when retransmitting a packet. aprs.fi cannot possibly know about those.
• A lot of digipeaters do callsign substitution instead of insertion, replacing original path components. A packet with a path of OH7RDÖ,WIDE2-1 could have been a WIDE1-1,WIDE2-1 packet in the first place, and gone through OH7RDÖ and another unknown digipeater.
• The aprs.fi "first heard" algorithm tries to go on the safe side: if it's not sure, it doesn't count as directly heard. But even then, some incorrect overly long paths are shown.
• Stations transmitting invalid or fake coordinates will skew these statistics. If the transmitting station claims to be 1000 km away (due to a bad GPS fix), my best guess can only be that the station actually is that far away.
• Items and objects are not shown here, since they are usually far away from the transmitter which transmitted the packets.

Read through that quote and I suspect that most of the packets you're copying are either a) injecting directly to the APRS-IS causing your RF receptions to be dupe-suppressed or b) have a path that causes aprs.fi to have doubts about the reception based on the above description.

The APRS-IS,  from which aprs.fi draws its data, is not usable for doing any sort of RF network analysis like "Stations heard by".  Although aprs.fi does make an attempt at it, it cannot be relied on as being complete.

Hi, although  my raw packets are being reported by APRS.FI, and that I'm active, positions and stations that have clearly been decoded on my RF port are suddenly not being shown under "Stations heard by N7TTQ-9" nor "Stations which heard N7TTQ-9".  Identical stations heard identically up to the 29th were fine, then nothing.  I must have hit a button somewhere.  Mind you prop has not been good in the last few days but for example VA6ATA-1 I clearly have heard and have even messaged but doesn't show up as being heard by me nor vice versa.  

Does anybody have any ideas?

Thanks.
Jeff

Thanks, but guys like VA6ATA-1 had, in the past, reported the last heard on both ends like clockwork and now not? Now, it might be HE changed his config somehow which messed things up after 4:36 pm on the 29th. And I did track the mobile guy VE6AB-15 Friday morning. And there were many others that just suddently stopped on the 29th. You can see it in APRS.fi .  
Also, oddly, VA6ATA-1 reported seeing me at 0 lat 0 long yesterday,  but I see my N7TTQ-9 right at my QTH. so that was a confusing or surprising statement.. like somehow HE is not recognizing the position data that I have never changed and continue to report.  Hmmmmmm. OK I'll just let it cook for awhile I guess.  Everything else seems to work

Oh, one "bug".. when I "configure Ports" on the RF port and merely hit "accept" it shuts off kiss mode and I have ot shut the program down and unplug the SCS tracker and wait 5 seconds and... you know the drill..

Thanks. Jeff

ahh but I get that if they direct inject the station it won't show up on APRS.fi... ok.

Any time you configure an RF Port, it internally disables and re-enables the port for the new settings to get everywhere they need to go.  And that means it fires the <CloseCmd>s and <OpenCmd>s as part of that.  And that's the same thing that happens when you close and restart APRSIS32, so there's no surprise that the TNC needs to be reset in between those actions with a full close APRSIS32, power down TNC, wait, power up TNC, and start APRSIS32.

Just to be clear, their directly injected packet will show up at aprs.fi via TCPIP*, but none of their RF packet receivers will get "credit" for having heard that station because those IGated packets will never be delivered to aprs.fi because the APRS-IS network will drop them as duplicates of the directly delivered packet.

I got it. Thanks!

It's just that my nearest gateway VA6ATA-1 used to constantly update it's "last heard" from me for a few weeks now it suddenly does not.  I can see in APRSISCE that he heard me and I him, but no more reporting occurs in APRS.fi, and I guess for the reason  you spelled out.

  It's almost like the criteria is being applied differently now.  That's sort of the core of my observation about all of this. Why did it used to update it every so often and then suddenly on the 29th it stopped? There's nothing more to do about it at this point... except...

.. the best solution is.... I have to get my mobile tracker working to see if my gateway is picking up mobile devices.  The last guy I heard was in Calgary and he hasn't been back on for days..

It didn't work the last time I tried 10 days ago so I have to yard my radio out of my car and make sure eeeeverything is working perfectly before putting it back. It used to work, but like with most things with me, if I breathe on it wrong, it stops working. 

73s.
Jeff

OK I got a new "station heard directly by N7TTQ-9" so I believe things are working fine 100.000% and won't touch a thing.
Thanks.
Jeff

2 1/2 months later, I see that what shows up on APRS.fi and how long it remains as reported "packets to" or "packets from" seems a bit random. I have learned to stop worrying about it.  Since I have my own gateway and a moving vehicle with a Robust Packet beacon .. I can always verify my system is working and the long and short of it is, that's "good enough" for me.  
BTW someone on Facebook had problems with APRSISCE (greying out of 1200 baud packets or somesuch - not anything I'm ever going to be involved with) so I sent him to this group to sign up and get involved... 
Thanks Lynn!