[aprssig] I Apologize!

[Steve Dimse]

On Jan 7, 2007, at 3:07 AM, dick at kb7zva.com wrote:

> Tier 2 couldn't handle the impact and caused many failures and  
> complaints from
> the ham community. Phil and I both wish the CWOP's the best  
> wherever they
> end up. I apologize to everyone for being a key factor in the  
> flooding of non-ham
> data into the APRS-IS. It ended today at Tier 2. The wrath of BLUE  
> will slowly
> re-appear if you let it according to the new plan.

I used to just think Dick was just a nasty old cuss that liked to  
argue (yes, just like myself), but now I'm not so sure. An hour  
before he sent this, he was begging Russ at NWS to update his server  
information so some of the displaced CWOP users would still come  
through his server. When Russ responded by removing all mention of  
Tier 2 servers from the CWOP pages, this comes out of Dick's mouth,  
trying to say he acted in the best interests of ham radio.

For years, Phil and Dick lobbied hard with the weather program  
operators and CWOP users to use their servers. You know, just like  
they do here, with stories of how the core is struggling, and how  
great their tier is. They succeeded to the point where the majority  
of the CWOP users had only Tier 2 servers in their connection list.  
What they did yesterday was cut off, with an hour's warning (sent to  
the CWOP administrator's NOAA email address on a Saturday), the feed  
of more than 3000 weather stations that the NWS and others have come  
to rely on, at a time when people are literally dying of bad weather  
in the US. It made amateur radio look very amateurish, like some of  
us had taken our ball and gone home.

I have no doubt that the tier 2 sysops believe the core is teetering,  
however it most certainly is not, and yesterday proved it. The core  
was running at 40% capacity before their temper tantrum. When the  
Tier 2 servers shut down their CWOP port, about 800 CWOP users  
immediately transfered to second. This was a result of old  
recommendations that had users placing second.aprs.net as their  
backup server. Second was already the most heavily loaded of the  
three servers by far before the tier 2 shutdown, normally running at  
about 80% capacity. However, it took an 800% increase in CWOP data  
without the slightest problem, going to 83% usage. Since then,  
another 200 users have manually updated their connection to the core.  
In total, these 1000 users raised the load on the core 2%, to 42%.  
This is because a CWOP user is roughly 100th the load of an APRS  
user, connecting for a few seconds every 5 to 15 minutes.

This is not made up, anyone that chooses to can see the stats pages  
on the servers

http://1.aprs.net:14501
http://2.aprs.net:14501
http://3.aprs.net:14501

Tier 2 seems to have drunk their own Kool-Aid, doing a sudden  
shutdown on a weekend with the hope of crumbling the core, when that  
failed they backpedaled and said CWOP was still welcome on a  
different port. When the CWOP administrator responded by removing all  
mention of Tier 2 from the configuration page, they brought their  
fight over to this list, trying to become the champions of a fight  
against the "sea of blue".

APRS users are free to choose whichever server they want. If you are  
happy with a connection to Tier 2, fine with me, just when your data  
does not appear on findU, email them not me. If you want to use the  
core, and I think that is better, there is plenty of capacity, the  
connections are closer to findU and other core users, and the servers  
are run by Greg, Dave, and Gerry, who demonstrate the ham radio  
ideals of service and professionalism. By the end of today, a forth  
core server should be up and running, which would be enough capacity  
to handle all of tier 2's traffic, should they decide to turn that  
off tomorrow. If they do, the core will be able add another server or  
two to assure uninterrupted service with one or two failures of core  
servers. The core isn't going to take their ball and go home.

I'm sorry you all got caught up in this, but you need to hear both  
sides and make your own choice.

Steve K4HG