APRS call sign corruption at iGate

I noticed a number of unfamiliar call signs appearing on the aprs.fi info page as stations located near mine, and some clearly corrupted format.

These included VK2RR-1, VK2AW-1, VK2OM-9, VK2YGV9 to name just a few.

These have all been routed via VK2RTM and VK2JMA. I suspect the corruption is with VK2JMA as VK2YGV seems to igate packets from VK2RTM correctly. VK2JMA-5 uses Xastir v2.00 iGate software.

Though the on-air link is protected by HDLC frame checks sequences, the in-shack processes are mostly unchecked. It seems that many stations don’t perform rudimentary checks that their facility works properly.