What's the deal with WIDEN-n?

[Jack Twilley]

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[This message was reposted from eHam.net's APRS forum by the author]

I'm writing an APRS client in Ruby, so I've spent a lot of time
staring at packets. I think I understand how RELAY works -- whatever
station repeats RELAY packets replaces RELAY with their callsign. WIDE
works the same way, but what about WIDEN-n? I've collected some
packets with my AEA TNC to demonstrate my confusion.

KE6STH>W6CX-3*>WIDE>SWRRSR:'1PQ!68k/]"4%}Sione
KE6STH>W6CX-3>W6CO-5*>SWRRSR:'1PQ!68k/]"4%}Sione

In this case, WIDE is being replaced with W6CO-5 when that station
repeats the packet. That makes perfect sense.

K6HG-9*>WIDE2-1>S7RURP:'2]1l sk/]"3q}
K6HG-9>WIDE2*>S7RURP:'2]1l sk/]"3q}

What station is repeating this packet? I can't tell. What's supposed
to happen here?

KE6TIP-3*>WIDE4-3>APRS:!3757.24NN12218.40W#PHG4268/A=3D000850/SanPabloRidge=
,Richmond
KE6TIP-3*>WIDE4-2>APRS:!3757.24NN12218.40W#PHG4268/A=3D000850/SanPabloRidge=
,Richmond

This fascinates me. Why does the same station -- the originating
station even -- repeat a packet and decrement the counter?

Help!
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Jack Twilley
jmt at twilley dot org
http colon slash slash www dot twilley dot org slash tilde jmt slash
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