[aprssig] WX station transmit rate?

[Robert Bruninga]

>>> ramirault at erols.com 1/27/05 9:17:59 AM >>>
>>Bob Says:  the benefit of halving the load 24/7 outweighs the
>> benefit of hearing a few WX packets on the rare occasion
>> of a RELAY digi going down.
>
>"...on the rare occasion of a RELAY digi going down."    
>I'm sorry, that does not make sense to me.  In my experience, 
>local (fixed) stations come and go. Some last a long time 
>(weeks/months/years), some not so long  (days/weeks).

If the WX station is that valuable that its data must be seen
at all times, then again, maybe someone needs to put up 
a permanent digipeater that can hear it.  There are other
solutions too..

>Many are not 24/7 but only on the air for a few hours a day, 
>and maybe not  even every day at that.  If you choose one 
>of those stations as your first hop by callsign then you will 
>not make it into the local WIDE (assuming you can't hit it 
>direct) consistantly.

Again, its a tradeoff.  The doubling or tripling of the load on 
the network 24/7 due to using the inefficient path of RELAY,WIDE
needs to be balanced against the probabilty of this WX station 
being heard on the occasion of its designated "relay" station 
going down.

I think the benefits of switching to WIDE2-2 to reduce the 24/7 
load by a factor of 2 to four (depending on how many RELAYs 
it hits everytime) is a significant benefit.  If the WX station
cannot hit a reliable  WIDEn-N diig, then there are many ways
to approach that problem.

Maybe RELAY,WIDE is the only soultion in this case, but I am
only asking everyone to please consider the load on the network
and not just always take the easy brute-force solution without
regard to the load on the network.  WIDE2-2 is more efficinet
by the same factor as the number of RELAYS that are hearing
the original packet that are generating dupes...

thanks
Bob