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I recently got a Kenwood TM-D710G and have been experimenting with using its internal TNC connected to a serial port on my laptop for packet / PBBS operation. I can connect to PBBSes whose callsigns I know, and I can get the TNC to monitor (that is, print to the terminal) most traffic on the channel using the commands:

MONITOR ON
MALL ON
MCON ON
MCOM ON

However, I cannot seem to get the TNC to monitor the 'ID' packets sent by other packet systems. This is a problem when I go to other cities with packet systems on the air whose callsigns I don't know.

If I use the TRACE ON command, the TNC does show hex dumps of ID packets, such as the following one from station WU8C:

a2 a6 a8 40 40 40 e0 ae aa 70 86 40 40 65 03 cd 00 03 00 cc 07 04 00 01 ae aa 70 86 40 40 64 2c 66 30 08 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 2c 66 01 01

Granted, it is possible to decode these by hand (that one decodes to "QST WU8C..."), but it would be nice not to have to do so.

If anyone has any hints on how I might get the TNC to decode and display these packets, I'll be very grateful.

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  • $\begingroup$ More info may be necessary. What terminal program are you using? What are its connection settings? Do you get any output at all with other combinations of commands? Does your radio's manual show any other settings related to this? What are those set to? What have you tried? $\endgroup$
    – user157
    Jul 2, 2016 at 15:00

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On most of TNCs you can dump the monitor settings by the "display monitor" (or "display m") command

cmd:display monitor
BUDLIST  OFF NONE
CSTAMP   ON
DAYSTR   mm/dd/yy hh:mm:ss
FILTER   OFF
HEADERLN ON
LLIST    OFF NONE
MONITOR  ON
MALL     ON
MBEACON  ON  <---- If on, monitors packets addressed to BEACON and ID
MCON     ON
MCOM     ON
MHEADER  ON
MRESP    ON
MRPT     ON
MSTAMP   ON
MXMIT    ON
PID      ON
SUPLIST  OFF NONE
TRACE    OFF
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    $\begingroup$ So you are saying that the answer to the question is to turn MBEACON on? $\endgroup$
    – rclocher3
    Mar 18, 2020 at 22:45

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