Broadcast schedule and related questions

Does the content broadcast follow a schedule? For example it would be good if the weather was broadcast according to a schedule so as to allow those of us (on yachts) who rely on it to take extra precautions to ensure good reception.

Is the weather content broadcast in a single file? If it is, how robust is the system? If I lose a few packets during the broadcast will I lose the entire weather content update or only a small portion of the global data.

Thanks for an amazing system.

yes. its all scheduled (though schedules are currently fluid).

  1. Weather is sent out every 6 hours, about 40 minutes on the hour UTC
  2. News is sent out every hour, about 15 minutes on the hour, UTC
  3. APRS is sent out every 5 minutes (when there are packets)

Wikipedia new article is sent out differently though - a bit more complicated, and its scheduling takes into account the amount of other activity on the carousel.

Community content is not on a schedule.

Weather content is sent out as a set of 4 - 5 files. System has a LOT of FEC so losing a few packets every now and then should not be a problem, but you must have stable Frame Lock most times. If your Frame Lock isn’t stable, you will have trouble completing files.

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thanks Abhishek,

so the weather comes down at:
0600 to 0640
1200 to 1240
1800 to 1840
0000 to 0040??

Are the 4-5 files “regional” i.e. 4-5 regions? So let’s say that I am particularly interested in the weather in the south Atlantic is there a specific time that I need to be listening carefully?

No. Starts xmitting at around 40 minutes on the hour. Each file should take approx 20 minutes.

The files aren’t regional - they are split temporally - 000 hours (current data), and then 024, 048 and 072 hours out (predictions).

The order within the files is not guaranteed and the source (NOAA) sometimes gets delayed in its own releases, missing our time window, thus going into the next.

Also, files go around multiple times until superseded.

So overall - the design does not favor “listening” at particular times. While you can monitor the reception and come up with a reasonable window, the entire stack is designed with a 24x7 listening receiver in mind.

Also, the receiver does maintenance tasks periodically, so if its not up most of the day, you will see problems.

That should not be true, there is redundant information in the broadcast that should allow for files to
get completed even when a few packets are missing. If that is actually working, I don’t know. I know
it took me and others a long time to get the wellknown 600kb weather app file for Librarian completed,
which is kind of suspicious.

That file is special, and has unique issues. it has nothing to do with lost packets. its also going away.

:smiley: lol

Any chance of adding the carousel status/info to the status.outernet.is page? Then people can check what files they should be receiving and identify reception issues.

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I second that proposal! :slight_smile:
In the meantime just having the information on the forum would certainly help.

Just another quickie @Abhishek
The APRS data seems to be “selective” … I have sent quite a few that contain the word “OUTNET” Often from HF over the last few days . I can see that they get to the APRSis backbone, as I see them on aprs.fi, but none of them have managed to get to on the messages from outernet .
There have been 3 that have been sent today that are not there ( hourly beacons on 10Mhz that have been picked up )
I spent the weekend testing some other HF APRS software , which is why i noticed :slight_smile:
Here is a dump from aprs.fi of the raw packets

2017-01-21 12:00:46 GMT: M0KNC>APSK63,WIDE1-1,qAR,DF4AE-11::APOUT : Test to Outernet from HF OUTNET {1
2017-01-21 14:33:49 GMT: M0KNC>APSK63,WIDE1-1,qAR,DF4AE-11::APOUT : Test to Outernet from HF OUTNET {3
2017-01-21 14:37:36 GMT: M0KNC>APSK20,WIDE1-1,qAR,DF4AE-11::APOUT : Test to Outernet from HF CCW OUTNET {5
2017-01-21 14:37:46 GMT: M0KNC>APSK63,WIDE1-1,qAR,DF4AE-11::APOUT : Test to Outernet from HF CCW OUTNET {5
2017-01-22 10:02:22 GMT: M0KNC>APSK63,qAR,ESAJ-3::APOUT : Testing CCW on 30Mhz to OUTNET (2){2
2017-01-22 11:33:38 GMT: M0KNC>APSK63,WIDE1-1,qAR,DF4AE-11::APOUT :test again to OUTNET from 10Mhz CCW{1
2017-01-23 15:39:57 GMT: M0KNC>APJYC1,MB7UW*,qAR,MB7USS-1::APOUT :Hello OUTNET {m0003
2017-01-23 15:43:45 GMT: M0KNC>APJYC1,MB7UW*,qAR,MB7USS-1::EMAIL-2 :me this is a test only from 2mtrs{m0002
2017-01-23 15:44:57 GMT: M0KNC>APJYC1,MB7UW*,qAR,MB7USS-1::APOUT :Hello OUTNET {m0003
2017-01-23 15:45:41 GMT: M0KNC>APJYC1,MB7UW,WIDE2*,qAR,MB7USS-1::EMAIL-2 :me this is a test only from 2mtrs{m0001
2017-01-23 15:48:38 GMT: M0KNC>APJYC1,MB7UW,WIDE2*,qAR,MB7USS-1:>IO91hc Hi Outernet OUTNET from Winchester UK
2017-01-23 15:54:57 GMT: M0KNC>APJYC1,MB7UW*,qAR,MB7USS-1::APOUT :Hello OUTNET {m0003
2017-01-23 16:03:08 GMT: M0KNC>APJYC1,MB7UW*,WIDE2-1,MB7UW,qAR,MB7USS-1::EMAIL-2 :ack1126
2017-01-23 16:08:38 GMT: M0KNC>APJYC1,MB7UW,WIDE2*,qAR,MB7USS-1:>IO91hc Hi Outernet OUTNET from Winchester UK
2017-01-23 17:08:38 GMT: M0KNC>APJYC1,MB7UW,WIDE2*,qAR,MB7USS-1:>IO91hc Hi Outernet OUTNET from Winchester UK
2017-01-23 17:38:38 GMT: M0KNC>APJYC1,MB7UW,WIDE2*,qAR,MB7USS-1:>IO91hc Hi Outernet OUTNET from Winchester UK
2017-01-23 18:08:38 GMT: M0KNC>APJYC1,MB7UW,WIDE2*,qAR,MB7USS-1:>IO91hc Hi Outernet OUTNET from Winchester UK
2017-01-23 18:38:39 GMT: M0KNC>APJYC1,MB7UW,WIDE2*,qAR,MB7USS-1:>IO91hc Hi Outernet OUTNET from Winchester UK
2017-01-23 19:08:38 GMT: M0KNC>APJYC1,MB7UW,WIDE2*,qAR,MB7USS-1:>IO91hc Hi Outernet OUTNET from Winchester UK
2017-01-23 19:38:38 GMT: M0KNC>APJYC1,MB7UW,WIDE2*,qAR,MB7USS-1:>IO91hc Hi Outernet OUTNET from Winchester UK
2017-01-23 20:08:39 GMT: M0KNC>APJYC1,MB7UW,WIDE2*,qAR,MB7USS-1:>IO91hc Hi Outernet OUTNET from Winchester UK
2017-01-23 20:38:40 GMT: M0KNC>APJYC1,MB7UW,WIDE2*,qAR,MB7USS-1:>IO91hc Hi Outernet OUTNET from Winchester UK
2017-01-23 20:46:21 GMT: M0KNC>APJYC1,MB7UW*,qAR,MB7USS-1::WLNK-1 :L{m0005
2017-01-23 20:51:20 GMT: M0KNC>APJYC1,MB7UW*,qAR,MB7USS-1::WLNK-1 :L{m0005
2017-01-23 20:52:15 GMT: M0KNC>APJYC1,MB7UW,WIDE2*,qAR,MB7USS-1::WLNK-1 :L{m0004
2017-01-23 21:00:33 GMT: M0KNC>APJYC1,MB7UW*,qAR,MB7USS-1::WLNK-1 :WEPIUY{m0006
2017-01-23 21:07:30 GMT: M0KNC>APJYC1,MB7UW,WIDE2*,qAR,MB7USS-1:=5105.00N/00120.00W-,/W1144.800MHz TOFF
2017-01-23 21:08:39 GMT: M0KNC>APJYC1,MB7UW,WIDE2*,qAR,MB7USS-1:>IO91hc Hi Outernet OUTNET from Winchester UK
2017-01-23 21:37:30 GMT: M0KNC>APJYC1,MB7UW,WIDE2*,qAR,MB7USS-1:=5105.00N/00120.00W-,/W1144.800MHz TOFF
2017-01-23 21:39:11 GMT: M0KNC>APJYC1,MB7UW*,qAR,MB7USS-1::WLNK-1 :L{m0007
2017-01-23 21:41:12 GMT: M0KNC>APJYC1,MB7UW*,WIDE2-1,MB7UW,qAR,MB7USS-1::WLNK-1 :ack17
2017-01-23 22:08:39 GMT: M0KNC>APJYC1,MB7UW,WIDE2*,qAR,MB7USS-1:>IO91hc Hi Outernet OUTNET from Winchester UK
2017-01-24 07:57:41 GMT: M0KNC>PSKAPR,TCPIP*,qAS,OE5RTL:!5105.00N/00119.98Wy jpskmail 1.8.7 test Hello to OUTNET via HF and PSKMail
2017-01-24 08:57:51 GMT: M0KNC>PSKAPR,TCPIP*,qAS,OE5RTL:!5105.00N/00119.98Wy jpskmail 1.8.7 test Hello to OUTNET via HF and PSKMail
2017-01-24 09:57:48 GMT: M0KNC>PSKAPR,TCPIP*,qAS,OE5RTL:!5105.00N/00119.98Wy jpskmail 1.8.7 test Hello to OUTNET via HF and PSKMail

Maybe it is just that so many stations started sending messages with the word OUTNET, sometimes
very repetitive. I could understand when the number of duplicate messages was limited.

Hi, remember what i dumped above is a RAW feed, As APRS is an “unprotcol” system, all messages are sent usually 3 or 4 times. if you look carefully though , you will note that the beacons are at least one hour apart…

I don’t think that the lack of the feed has anything to do with repeated messages anyway :slight_smile: