[aprssig] APRS LAT/LONG standards

[Robert Bruninga]

> The Sky Diamond 7 payload has been retrieved, 
>http://www.w4ghs.org/Looking_for_a_Needle_in_a_Haystack.pdf 

One problem noted in the after-action summary was
the problem of converting between GPS coordinates
from Decimal degrees to DEGREES and MINUTES.

This is exactly why the APRS standard for GPS
coordinates in HAM radio was supposed to be the
GPS standard of DEG and decimal MINUTES.  So
that we wouldn't always have to be doing conversions.

Some of the follow-on APRS clones did not follow
this standard and this strong advice and simply
used the convenient programmers format of
decimal degreees because that is how they do 
computations.   When I complained that this is 
NOT used by ANY human system of navigation
and that it will only lead to frustration by the users, 
the response was "Oh, they can click on it and 
bring up a menu and convert to any format 
they want".

ARGH...
This is OK, but it is furstrating to always have
to do conversions when the OBJECTIVE and GOAL
of APRS was to have a standard for human-to
human tactical information interchange and that
inclludes the human-to-human echange of
LAT/LONGS and that is why the APRS standard
was chosen to match the GPS standard of
DEG and MINUTES to avoid conversions.

Please, lets get everyone trained to use 
DEG and decimal minutes in all HAM radio.

THanks,
Off my stump.
de WB4APR, Bob