TNC commands are commands that you send to your TNC, via its RS-232 serial port, to configure various operating parameters and modes. This seminar assumes that your TNC is operating in its normal Terminal mode of operation.

No! Most TNCs have many commands that you might never need to use or change. The best way to learn about configuring your TNC's commands is to only learn a small subset at a time. This is the approach taken with this technical seminar.

It is easier, and you will get better results, if you perform a 'hard reset', restoring your TNC back to it's factory defaults, and then only setting the commands that are required to be changed. Note that some TNCs when reset back to the factory default conditions, will be in an 'Auto-Baud' mode, where it is waiting for you to enter a character on the serial port to establish the baud rate. Usually the character that it is expecting is the asterisk '*' character. Type it several times until the messages coming from your TNC are readable. Check you TNC manual to see if it does this, and if so, what character it is expecting for the auto-baud feature.

Only one TNC command MUST be set before operating your TNC. This command is the MyCall command. It is used to setup your amateur radio callsign into the TNC. The syntax is simple, just enter "mycall VE7xxx", where "VE7xxx" is meant to be replaced with your own callsign. If you do not set MyCall up, some TNC's will use a default callsign of NOCALL, PK232, etc. Newer TNCs will not allow you to operate, UNTILL you have set up your proper callsign. You will look pretty 'dumb' when you connect to your local BBS system, and login as NOCALL !

The following list of commands should be set for optimal performance depending upon what type of RF channel you are using. The suggested numerical values are only meant as a starting point, and may need to be adjusted to better suite your requirements.

Command: Suggest Value: Description:

TXDELAY 35 Transmit Delay Startup Time - in 10 msec's

FRACK 5 - 10 Time to wait for acknowledge packet - in seconds

ACKPRIOR OFF Disable priority ack (causes problems on busy channels)

RETRY 10 Number of times to retry transmitting a packet

DWAIT 0 Older method of delay to try to avoid collisions - not used

PPERSIST ON Specifies to use Persist channel access method

PERSIST 63 Channel access timing, probability of transmitting (0-255)

SLOTTIME 10 Channel access timing, delay before persist - in 10msec's

MAXFRAME 1 Maximum number of packets to send at once (1-7)

PACLEN 128 Maximum number of bytes in a single packet (0-255)

AWLEN 8 Number of data bits per word (AEA & PacComm only)

The following list of commands is the minimum that is needed to be setup to correctly run the Winpack software:

• ECHO OFF
• MONITOR ON(for AEA TNCs use "MONITOR 4")
• HEADERLN ON
• UNPROTO VE7KIT(change VE7KIT to your local BBS call)
• 8BITCONV ON
• BREAK ON(not required on AEA TNCs)
• CMDTIME 1(for AEA TNCs use "CMDTIME 10")
• COMMAND $03
• DCDCONN ON(for AEA TNCs only)
• MCON OFF(for AEA TNCs use "MCON 0")
• NEWMODE ON
• NOMODE OFF
• XFLOW OFF
• STREAMSW $00(for Kantronics and PacComm TNCs)
• STREAMDB OFF(for PacComm TNCs)
• CHSWITCH $00(for AEA TNCs only)
• CHDOUBLE OFF(for AEA TNCs only)

The following commands although optional, should be set up as well:

• CTEXT Welcome to WinPack. Send /h for help...
• CMSG ON

By using the above TNC commands, the WinPack program should work correctly. The following list of TNCs should work with the above commands:

• AEA PK-232
• AEA PK-96
• PacComm Tiny-2
• Kantronics KPC-3, KPC-3 PLUS, and KPC-9612

Note: To set up WinPack to collect the message headers from F6FBB BBS systems, enable the following options under the menu(s) -->Mail --> Mail Options:

• Use FBB unproto lists
• Use compressed download
• Use compressed forwarding
• TPK compatibility mode
• Use split sessions

Read your TNC's reference manual. They are filled with lots of information. All of the material for this technical seminar was obtained from the standard manuals that are supplied by each TNC manufacturer.