[aprssig] More digis are changing to the new paradigm

[Earl Needham]

At 10:14 PM 7/4/2005, Keith - VE7GDH wrote:
>Earl KD5XB wrote on July 04, 2005
><snip>
> > I'm not sure I like this -- for YEARS I have been out on the end of a long
> > string of digis, and I don't see much unless people use longer paths. It's
> > very frustrating that so many people want to "jump on the bandwagon"
> > EVERYWHERE and fix problems that only exist in the big cities. I'm
> > seriously considering moving all my APRS equipment over to PropNet
> > instead. I mean, if I only see 13 stations, then what's the point?
>
>This isn't meant as a criticism, but why are you "in APRS"? Usually, 
>someone participates in a hobby or a particular aspect of a hobby because 
>they think that it is either fun, interesting, a learning experience, or 
>in some way useful to themselves or to others or to their community. What 
>is APRS to you, and what your expectations of it?

         Good question.  The first time I saw APRS, it was from the QRZ 
CD-ROM that included a callsign database and a TON of shareware.  APRSdos 
was on there, I think it was version 7.2?  Maybe 2.7?  Can't remember, but 
it was a long time ago.  The first time I tried it out, I just knew I had 
to use this mode.  I have had a lot of enjoyment from it, I guess because 
it's similar to RADAR or something.

>Trying to look at it from your perspective, if I were the only station on 
>the map and didn't see any other activity around me, maybe I would have 
>trouble seeing the point of "why do it"? However, there is activity around 
>you. Although there will always people that won't get involved in anything 
>related to ham radio unless it is done solely via RF, I honestly think 
>that the APRS-IS is an integral part of APRS now.

         That may be true, but I'm not sure I want that to be MY way of 
using it.

>  I see that you are running UI-View32 at KD5XB-2 and something else at 
> KD5XB-9 (TNC? and quite some distance away in TX).

         Yeah, that's my dumb tracker that was set up in my truck.  The 
truck broke down and even though I brought the equipment home with me, I 
didn't install it in the loaner truck I'm in.  Hopefully I'll be back in my 
own truck in a few days.
         And I'll be replacing the dumb tracker with a HamHUD soon.

>  If you have an Internet connection, you could connect your UI-View32 
> station to an APRS server and "see" stations from as far away as you 
> wanted to. While there will always be exceptions to the "WIDE2-2" rule, 
> you have to agree that if there is any amount of traffic at all on RF, 
> the longer the path, there more chance of collisions and the more chances 
> there are of being clobbered or clobbering someone else. I just don't see 
> rating the success or usefulness of APRS based solely on seeing "more 
> stations on the map, but only if heard via RF" - if that is what you are 
> saying. I also think that the closer we get to having (almost) everyone 
> adopt a two-hop path, the better off we will be until such time as NSR 
> (no source routing) becomes a reality, or perhaps a combination of NSR 
> most of the time but special paths if needed.

         I don't agree, there has to be some flexibility to cover various 
situations.  In some places I frequent, 2 hops will get you to 2 digis, but 
no human operators and no IGATEs.  On the other hand, some other places I 
frequent are so saturated that 2 hops is just way too much.

>I'm not trying to talk you into quitting APRS and I wouldn't try to 
>persuade you to stick around against your will if you decide to spend your 
>time on other aspects of the hobby. I just don't quite see eye to eye with 
>"what's the point" if you only see 13 stations on the map.

         Well -- have you ever sat around and watched paint as it dries?  <G>

         Earl


Earl Needham, KD5XB, Clovis, New Mexico DM84jk
http://kd5xb-2.no-ip.info