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[NQ4T]

About two weeks ago I picked up my first DV Hotspot, a ZUMSpot. During setup of Pi-Star I saw loads of options for aprs servers.

Anyway, I fired this thing up and noticed several new beacons and SSID from my call signs...usually in the wrong location since I didn't have enough digits in my GPS coordinates. I euventually fixed all of that and after a few days saw I was down to just a handful of new "objects" from my call:

NQ4T
NQ4T-1
NQ4T-B
NQ4T-R
NQ4T-N
NQ4T B

It took me a little while but I figured out which particialar part of the ZUMSpot was generating which beacon on a particular SSID. The main reason I did this is because I didn't feel like beaconing on my main call (-0) was appropiate.

NQ4T/NQ4T-1 - from the CC1 in the description I realized this was from the DMR side of my setup...which I don't have a DMR radio but I am using YSF2DMR on there. It actually seems to get pushed out by BrandMeister due to the TCP/IP path. I figured out the SSID BrandMeister uses is directly related to the SSID you assign to your DMR ID (since they allow that). So my straight DMR ID results in no SSID, and attaching "01" to the end of my DMR ID causes BM to APRS is as the SSID. Ok, that's fine.

NQ4T-R/NQ4T-N - though they're reported as coming from ircDDBGateway....these seem to be in the YSFGateway software....based on the fact the comment in the beacon matches a comment under APRS in YSFGateway. In this case it's based on the YSF suffix. I originally used "R", but after flashing a new card and starting over, I left it on -ND.

NQ4B-B/NQ4T B - This is without a doubt D-Star as my hotspot is using NQ4T   B and my actual HT is using the null/blank initial.

But here's what got me for a while....

Why twice? Why once with a -B "SSID" (I realize B is not a valid SSID but just roll with me on this) and why one with a space? I would think if it was my hotspot reporting my radio's position...it wouldn't show up as as "space B".

I see this with a lot of D-Star repeaters...they're listed twice using the invalid -B/C "SSID" and again with a space. Black diamonds on the dashes, red diamonds on the spaces. I realize there's no standard for the icons...but there seems to be a convention being used.

The other thing that intrigued me is the NQ4T B is being reported with a source station of NQ4T-S. NQ4T-S has never sent a location packet...so it doesn't even show up as a station on APRS.fi; but it does show as being the source call for all the "NQ4T B" beacons.

I see this with the local club's D-Star repeater....so I'm convinced whatever it is happens to be "normal". I was just wondering if someone might happen to have a very detailed understanding of the how/why.