[aprssig] "Emergency!" test convention?

[KC2MMi]

<My instinct is that your proposal triggers false alarms in almost all
stations in the short run, and that there's no way in the long run to
prevent false alarms in a significant minority of stations. Am I
missing something?>

Right, standards and software are forever, let's not do anything that ever
might obsolete any of them by changing it? Quick, let's remind the ITU to
remove that dumb @ sign from the new international morse code, because all
the old software won't handle it.

Seriously, Fritz. The argument about "Oh, this will render xxx incompatible"
is nonsense. If you follow that, you should go back to a spark gap radio--no
tubes or transistors allowed, certainly no FM modulation and no integrated
circuits, because they could cause the death knell of good old spark gap.

So let the spec read "As of January first, 2006...." and give the software
authors a year to patch their code, and the chance to make twenty bucks by
selling new versions. (Well, maybe $20 is excessive, after all two bucks
would be a good weeks pay in WW1 terms, and we wouldn't want to obsolete
that and start inflation, either.<G>)

Obsolete happens! Like death and taxes, there's a reason for it.