[aprssig] The new N-N paradigm summary (Cap)

[dick at kb7zva.com]

>The VHF
>WIDEn-N APRS network is amazingly resilient!  Warnings of a VHF net "death
>spiral" have been greatly exaggerated.

Resilient also means that when the local network gets saturated, nothing
happens. I live on the fringe's of 3 major metro areas the nearest being
about 145 miles away (LA, San Diego and Phoenix). My local station was
hearing over 180 stations on RF. Got to the point we couldn't hear our own
local stations direct.

We dropped WIDEn-N and TRACEn-N at 2 fringe digipeaters and local stations
heard dropped to 50-60 instantly. For the first time in years, we actually
could see our own mobiles using WIDE only. The local network now works.

Your network might be different and that's a blessing. The west coast is
saturated to the point that not all packets are seen. Common sense is NOT
setting your mobile to WIDE5-5 because you think your packets aren't being
heard by 10 local digis. If mobiles simply set to WIDE only or RELAY,WIDE
the packet success rate would increase.

>More of our users are learning that
>simply WIDE2-2 is a good path for general use, and it works.  It's better
>than a path that includes any commas.  Using only WIDEn-N or TRACEn-N
>produces no dupes.  Kantronics TNCS do not do any dupe checking on packets
>other than with pure WIDEn-N and TRACEn-N paths.  RELAY or WIDE or TRACE
>aren't much needed, and digipath commas cause loss of dupe-checking in our
>Kantronics TNCs. Going back to RELAY,WIDE (or worse yet RELAY,WIDE,WIDE)
>would be a step backward in California.

WIDEn-N and TRACEn-N is like adding training wheels to the local network. It
is used because education failed. That's like saying 5 watts is ok, 50 watts
is better in downtown LA. Crank it up to be heard! One of the 10 digis will hear
it. Pretty sad.

Several years ago LOAD monitors were installed in the 3 major locations. They
worked fine until they heard 250 packets in 10 mins. Then, they just couldn't
hear anymore because of collisions and saturation.

Yup, I disagree with Caps and Earl's generalizing. They both are fortunate at
the moment. I guess they don't see those stations 500-800 miles away flooding
into their own networks... the problem is that we saw 'their' networks in our
area <g>.

A step backwards sounds like a good plan. RELAY,WIDE is much better than WIDE2-2
that propagates packets in all directions because we don't understand what
effect our local digis have on adjacent networks. More Igates and better designed
digis cover the distance just fine.

Dick, KB7ZVA
APRSWest