[aprssig] Progress on the New-N system

[Robert Bruninga]

> I wish there were an easy way to halt any 
>digipeating of... RELAY, WIDE, or TRACEn-N. 

There is, and that is part of the New-N Paradigm.
Once the digi owner removes RELAY, and WIDE
from the UIDIGI ALIAS list and changes the
UITRACE parameter from TRACEn-N to WIDEn-N
then that does it.  That digi will no longer support
those inefficient dupe-generating paths and the 
obsolete TRACEn-N who's function has been
replaced with WIDEn-N.

>Or maybe we need an APRS SWAT Team with 
>small deployable groups ... yelling 
>"change the ... settings now!!!!!!!!". 

Or one individual to take the time.  Until my station
took a lightening hit, every few days, I would 
simply ask APRSdos for a list of all stations using
RELAY and WIDE and then send a personal
one-line message to each.  If they had an email
address, I'd send them an email.

It was working.  Slowly but surely.  But one has
to be very  considerate so as to not alienate.

Also, I maintain my station with a 3 line bulletin
explaining that RELAY and WIDE are obsolete
and recommending WIDE2-2 for this area
(the densist on the planet.  Other areas may
suggest W3-3 etc...)

We are now down to only 20% still using
RELAY and WIDE, but unfortunately, most
of them are still digis where it is difficult
to find the sysop...

But it does take a personal effort by someone
with the personality to lead others through the
change....  It wont happen without personal
contact to almost every user who is still
using RELAY and WIDE...

I think part of t he problem is the sysops who
wanted to make the change gently and not
take out RELAY and WIDE, to let their users
have a grace period.  Well, all that does is
let them continue on and lead to confusion
and a fragmented network where some things
work and somethings dont depending on 
where you are...  I think the best thing
is to make all the changes at once and then
the users will have to learn the new way...

de Wb4APR, Bob