PK-232 MBX – OPERATING MANUAL PACKET-RADIO
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4.4.5 Monitoring Other Stations
Use the MONITOR parameter to determine what kinds of packets you will see when you
are NOT connected to any another station.
"MONITOR" takes a numerical value between "0" (zero) and "6". Each higher number
adds more detail to your monitoring. As the value of the MONITOR setting is increased,
additional functions are included in the monitoring sequences. The meanings of the
MONITOR numbers are:
0 Monitoring is disabled.
1 Only unnumbered, "unconnected" frames are displayed. This setting will display
Beacons, but not display connected stations.
2 Numbered (I) frames are also displayed. Use this setting to monitor connected con-
versations in progress on the channel.
3 Connect request ("C") frames and disconnect ("D") request packets in addition to
the above are displayed.
4 This is your PK-232's default value. Unnumbered acknowledgment (UA) of connect
and disconnect frames are also displayed with either the characters "UA" or "DM"
and a header.
5 Receiver Ready (RR), Receiver Not Ready (RN), Reject (RJ), and Frame Reject (FR)
supervisory frames are also displayed.
6 Poll/Final bit and sequence numbers for monitored frames are shown.
Understanding all types of packet frames is not important to operate Packet. Packet oper-
ators should however understand that there are many types of control frames that do not
contain printable data.
Your PK-232 can display these frames, but most users only want to see frames with infor-
mation. For this reason, the default of the MONITOR command (4) does not display all
the packets that the PK-232 hears.
NOTE: If you will be leaving your PK-232 on to accept connects from others while
your computer is off, set MONITOR to 0 (zero) and type a <CTRL-S> to hold
the data.
4.4.5.1 Monitoring the Packet Networking Switches
There are other types of frames used by networking switches that the PK-232 does not
normally display. These frames can be seen with the MPROTO command. Turning the
command MPROTO ON allows ALL AX.25 frames to be displayed. Some packets you
might see with MPROTO ON will contain information that may interfere with the display
on your terminal or computer causing it to look "funny". For this reason the MPROTO
command default is OFF.
If you are hearing packets that sound strong but are not displayed on your screen, set-
ting MONITOR to 6 and MPROTO ON should show them. If you are curious about the
packets that do not print, you may find the command WHYNOT useful. When WHYNOT
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