[aprssig] Designating HOME Igates

[AE5PL Lists]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Robert Bruninga
> Posted At: Friday, June 17, 2005 6:19 PM
> Subject: RE: [aprssig] Designating HOME Igates
> 
> I disagree.
> Every APRS operator has a home area, and being able to have 
> the system deliver his traveling packets effeciently back to 
> his "home" should be a significant part of the job of APRS.  

Why?  The operators in our coverage area would rather not have somebody
beaconing on our RF frequency from across the state of across the world,
regardless of whether that person is "from" here.  And your "plan" does
nothing to enforce those packets to be from a formerly "local" station
(because you can't do it).

As I said, if your goal is so your unlicensed spouse can go in and look
at your home station to see where you are, read the regulations
regarding broadcasting to the general public.

> Also inherent in this design is that a person can only have one "home"
> and so fears of flooding from distant areas 
> are quite inconsequential.       Bob

As I pointed out, your "plan" cannot work in the current APRS-IS network
nor should it.  APRS was never designed for the operator to "deliver"
his packets to an arbitrary area (note that the "destination" field in
the AX.25 packet is not used to indicate a destination).  After
designing APRS, you tried to add all types of source routing (SSID,
UI-Flood, UI-Trace, etc.) to the AX.25 protocol but they are only
described briefly in the APRS specification.  In fact, no mention is
made of these sad attempts at source routing in the latest AX.25
specification.

At this point in time, APRS is no longer 100% tied to AX.25 (APRS-IS,
PSK31 trials, etc.).  Your documents continually point out that APRS is
a tactical protocol.  The AX.25 UI protocol is a "multicast" protocol
best suited to local RF operations.  Yet, you consistently try putting a
"but" into these facts by saying "I want my packets to be heard over
there, too."  This is where most of the congestion problems originate
today: people trying to get their packets "over there".

As I said, if you want to communicate with a specific station, send a
message to them.  If you want to send bulletins, weather, posits, or
whatever to our area just because you can, thank goodness the IGate
authors had the foresight to keep you from doing that.

APRS is a broadcast protocol, not a point-to-point protocol.  Don't try
to make it a point-to-point protocol because you will fail just as
miserably as your attempt to make AX.25 a routing protocol.

73,

Pete Loveall AE5PL
mailto:pete at ae5pl.net