Direwolf does not support VARA compatibility

[DrFrankReade]

Well, no kidding, of course it doesn't.

But given how well Direwolf works and how practical and well thought out the interface is, wouldn't it be nice if the community could come together and fork a VARA-compatible version, in order to secure what is a popular modulation scheme that is unfortunately in danger of unexpected extinction at any time due to the fact that it's much like the last northern white rhino, and living out its days, peacefully on a Wordpress blog, and only on Windows. Naturally, this venture might irritate, but maybe not as irritating as a dedicated Windows box. And it may even save Vara, as the scheme is so poorly documented, there are questions about whether it's even kosher for (at least US) operators to use - After all, I can't at all be certain of what data is actually going over the air, nor can anybody else. Which is the whole point of not being allowed to use encryption on amateur bands. So while this isn't an issue at all, and scold me if you must, I do feel that this is a hornets nest that would be worth kicking. So here I go.

pengowray/VaraHuffmanNet#1

[wb2osz]

Rather than incorporating VARA capability, it would make more sense to use the TCP KISS interface to another application.
https://mega.nz/file/eCxBFZzA#F6mfrEtQ0UCh7dxxKinwgU0livyB_87QI2delWbYn_U

Would you be willing to perform the testing if such an interface was added?

73,
John WB2OSZ

[DrFrankReade]

Connecting VARA by way of KISS would of course be possible as you point out, and I think I was thinking of something much like, well let's use the Adobe PDF file as an example, except imagine Adobe was run by one person, only ran on Windows, and hosted its files and documentation on Wordpress and Mega, both with their own "devastating" security flaws (I didn't say this). Of course we could all use Adobe Acrobat to read our PDF files, and that would be that, until the wordpress and or MEGA was hit by ransomware, for example, or somebody's computer was hit by lightning. But there's another option, where things are a bit more like Dire Wolf. For the PDF. It's open source. It's community based. - Sumatra PDF comes to mind, amongst myriad others. These options are maintained by a diverse group, and the knowledge and resources to keep them running are distributed, published, and maintainable. My concern is that the community is becoming over-reliant on an extremely fragile product. And I suppose, it's less of a call to add features to DireWolf and more of a call to consider developing an open source modem that's VARA compatible, so we don't end at that northern white rhino situation analogy that I keep harping on. But maybe there's no need at all. Maybe VARA should be allowed to live out its golden years in peace and solitude. Maybe a more adaptable creature, like ARDOP is the answer, and I should drop this whole crusade.

[F4FXL]

Generally speaking, if Direwolf could handle external TNCs over kiss this would open up a brand new world. Interfacing with LoRa, Robust Packet .....

[wb2osz]

According to https://pslara.org/docs/314.D.pdf , page 22, VARA FM has the ability to use KISS over TCP.

The direwolf development branch ("dev") now has the capability to map a virtual channel to an external TNC over TCP KISS.

The example given is for LoRa, but VARA FM, or any other modem supporting TCP KISS should work.

https://github.com/wb2osz/direwolf-doc/blob/main/APRS-LoRa-VHF-APRS-Bridge.pdf

Give it a try and tell us how it worked out.

73,
John WB2OSZ