[414] B   BID: 082905ON4HU 
Path: PE1GCB!PA3AWG!PA0TMA!PI8AYB!PE1ABT!PI8ERG!PI8ZAA!PI8HWB!ON6AR!ON7RC
Path: ON4HU
Date: 12 Feb 89 01:05:08 L
From: ON4HU@ON4HU
To: THENET@BLGNET
Subject: CHECKING YOUR PATH


CHECKING IF YOU HAVE A DECENT PATH ?

Notes for NET/ROM users

You are uplinkend to your local NET/ROM node,and now you
want to connect to a distant node. Before you do, it's a good
idea to check whether or not you have a decent path to your
intended destination.

First, issue a parameterless NODES command to obtain a list of
known destination nodes. Check to see wheter the node you
want is in this list. If it isn't, you can't get there.

If it is, issue another NODES command specifying the callsign
or identifier of the node you want. For instance, if you want to
get the BRUssels node:

NODES BRU
ON4HU-7} Routes to BRU:ON7RC-7
 126 6 1 ON4HU-2
>108 5 0 ON4HU-7
  0 6 0 ON4AWP-2

You will see up to tree routes to the node. if you see the
symbol ">",it points to the route you should look at.
Otherwise, look at the first route in the list.

The route in question will have a sequence of tree numbers-
in this czse, "108","5",and"0".

The first number ("108") is the quality of the route. The higher
it is, the better the route is (theoretically). Routes with
qualities less than 100 may not be useable. If the route quality
is zero, it's definitely best not to attempt to connect to the
node.

The second number ("5") is the obsolescence count, and indicates
how recent the routring information is. This value is normally
set to 6 whenever a routing broadcast is received that indicates
the routes is still OK, and decremented each time such a routing
broadcast is not received as expected. The count is usually 5 or
6- a lower value often means the route has become marginal or 
has disappeared entirely. If the count is zero, it indicates that
the route has been manally locked for some reason.

The third number is always either "0" or "1". If it is "1" it
indicates that the route involves a cross-over to another channel
of a multi-channel node-often to a "bacbone" channel. Unlike the
first two numbers, this one doesn't give you any information
about the quality of the path.

ON4HU Andre
WBPRN
Jan.10