[aprssig] Why RELAY,WIDE... is so bad....

[Curt, WE7U]

On Thu, 31 Mar 2005, Robert Bruninga wrote:

> Some people say that they have to hve a RELAY in
> a certain area because it is a dead zone.  True, but
> the "cost" of having mobiles use the R,W path just
> for that one packet in the morning and that one packet
> in the evening in that "hole" is causing the other
> 40 of his commute packets to be generating over
> 120 "DUPES" all the rest of the time when he is
> closer to town on his 20 minute commute.

I'm one of the ones still suggesting that in this area we keep RELAY
for mobiles.  There are just too many shadow areas in my county,
particularly as I drive east into the hills/mountains.  Same for the
counties around me in all directions.

Possible solutions to the driving from boonies->cities problem
(which I do every day):

  Use RELAY only for home stations and skip adding it to the hilltop
  digi's.

  Use smart digi's like we have a few of around here already that
  can do pre-emptive digipeating.  If a  packet is heard which has
  RELAY as the first parameter and hasn't been digipeated yet, set
  the bit on "RELAY" AND decrement the WIDE2-2 to a WIDE2-1 for that
  packet.

  Goes from "RELAY,WIDE2-2" heard to "RELAY*,WIDE2-1" digipeated,
  which means you just used up two slots.


> We MUST phase out WIDE completely and discourage
> any routine use of RELAY.

We're been down on "WIDE" around here (NWAPRS) for a long time.
We've been using the flooding protocols instead.


> And if the dead zone is really dead, then put a WIDE2-2
> digi there to replace the RELAY.  You still get the digipeat
> but not the QRM all the rest of the time when the mobile
> is not there....

If that is what we should go towards for the dead zones, then
perhaps WIDEn-N flooding protocol needs to get added to each client
so that this can be enabled when needed?

Xastir + digi_ned running on the same port can do this now, but
we've always shied away from putting WIDE or WIDEn-N digi's in these
low-altitude dead spots before, preferring to cover them with a
RELAY digi.

--
Curt, WE7U.   APRS Client Comparisons: http://www.eskimo.com/~archer
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