[aprssig] The best resolution of position from APRS

[Gregg Wonderly]

Robert Bruninga wrote:
>>>>HamLists at ametx.com 01/04/06 8:47 PM >>>
>>Ok, I can't let this pile of manure that Bob has dished out sit. 
>>[concerning the black and white TV and color analogy]
>>Ok, so APRS will be obsolete and unusable without a 
>>converter box by 2009, right?  Because that is what 
>>your analog TVs will be.  
> 
> AH, but for 65 years or so the B&W and color TV's
> worked perfeclty compatibly thanks to the standards
> committee that saw the value of maintaining
> compatibilty to existing sets.   If the programmers
> and "lets make them buy a new tracker and a new
> radio and new software every year mentality" people
> had won, then we would not have the universality 
> that APRS is today.

Opensource software has shown that the initial churn of discovering what people 
really need by having multiple, competing standards and applications results in 
a much faster establishment of standards and compatibility.  Everyone scrambles 
to provide the same, useful features that others come up with, and eventually 
things stabilize with a much more useful set of features with much more 
knowledge of the technical issues that really need to be addressed.

If the spec had not been written, I contend that the other applications would 
have overpowered APRSDOS, and would have established a much richer set of features.

Bob, based on your general nature of reply here and the confrontational nature 
of your posts that reply to things you don't like or don't understand, I'd say 
that you probably held it back the most.  You know a lot about the nature of 
what APRS was designed to deal with.  Your implementation, is primative, yet 
powerful.

Scott's OpenTrack is to APRS as DTV is to television.  It completely replaces 
it, with non-compatible technology which provides the same features, but with 
more extensibility and more possibilities.

Like it or not, many people feel like it's time to move on.

Pete is trying to work on making X.25 just be layer 2 with a new layer three 
network in place.  The same types of discussions are happening elsewhere.

Your technology is not "wrong", but it its life is limited by the cost, 
competativeness and creativity of the manufacturers who support it.

If a new high resolution, highly capable tracker is available to the masses, the 
market forces might cause a new standard to be formed.

Please, keep APRS on track for your needs, but don't sit here and gripe and 
complain about people having new ideas that are incompatibile with yours!

73

Gregg Wonderly
W5GGW