[aprssig] time for APRS second generation network?

[Robert Bruninga]

>>> Jason Winningham <jdw at eng.uah.edu> 1/5/05 5:08:36 PM >>>
> Not to be too flippant, but is APRS a moody woman or a 
>network with defined requirements and characteristics 
>that we can analyze and perhaps improve upon? 

Absolutely.  It is precisely defiined and has precise
characteristics and from that evolves everything else.
Let me summarize it:

DEFINITION:  A tactical real-time local ad-hoc network for 
digital communications among everyone at an event or in
a situation or LAN.  In today's terms, "to maintain situational 
awareness" of everything involving HAM radio, or the event,
or the situation in your immediate vicinity.

Characteristics:
A 1200 baud channel.  
A net cycle time of 10 minutes for local data, 30 minutes
for wider-area data.

And that is it.  Now from that it is trivial to calculate in real
time the number of stations that can be supported.  It 
typically results in 50 to 60.

Now, all else is history...
Bob

related aourIn reality, probably both...

> Remember, with an ALOHA limit of 60 and with 500 stations
> all trying to use the same channel with digis at 10,000 feet
> trying to define LANS is an effort in futitility.  In many cases
> if not all in SOCAL, one digi covers a aFULL ALOHA lan.
>
> Thus "routing" is meaningless.

OK, you've cited an example that is so broken _nothing_ will fix it.  
Does that invalidate the router concept?  New N-n won't fix this, do we

throw New N-n out, too?


In case I've been wasting thought on invalid assumptions, I'll state 
some of them:

Assumption:  traffic has grown on the APRS network to the point where 
congestion has broken it in some areas, otherwise you wouldn't be 
proposing New N-n to fix it.

Assumption: traffic volume will continue to grow on APRS.

Assumption: if we don't keep improving the network, it will break 
completely and APRS will die.

Assumption: we ought to be exploring ways to improve the network so 
that it does not break completely.

-Jason
kg4wsv