[aprssig] Broken digis (Ohio to Oklahoma and everywhere inbetween)

[Stan - N0YXV]

First of all I think we should change the title from 'Broken Digi's' to 'Non Efficient Digi's'. After all they aren't broken but just not working as well as they could be.

I think it would help if WIDEn-N operators would completely drop the use of RELAY, WIDE. I see a lot that use both the old and the new. If you drop the old settings completely people might start to wonder why packets are no longer being digi'd and start to ask questions. At least that would solve the problem with the owners that simply have never heard of WIDEn-N. (Yes they still do exist.)

I started an email campaign to alert operators using the old standards that times have changed. Most of the people I conversed with simply didn't know that there was a change. A few (1-2%) simply got mad and didn't want anybody telling them what to do. The vast majority didn't see any reason to fix what wasn't broken...in their opinion. Because those operators can't 'see' how they are effecting others they don't see any reason to fix what they see as working. That's like saying my 35 watt transmitter works really well 100' from the repeater so why should I lower my power. It's too bad that there isn't a way to show these people ALL the digi's they manage to hit. Since they can only see one path they seem to think that's the only Digi or IGate they hit.

One thing that happened during my email campaign that I didn't expect to find was the confusion between WIDEn-N and WIDE. To my surprise a lot of people think that WIDEn-N is just a short hand way of writing RELAY, WIDE (or other similar syntax type confusions). It's too bad the when the new settings were proposed that the name wasn't changed to something like BIGn-N so that it was really easy to see the difference between the old and the new.

[Can't believe I even have to type this disclaimer.]
If you disagree with me great. You can either respond in a constructive way that helps the Ham Radio community so we all (me included) can learn or we can just agree to disagree.

  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Richard N. Piper IV 
  To: TAPR APRS Mailing List 
  Sent: Friday, July 27, 2007 12:52 AM
  Subject: Re: [aprssig] Broken digis (Ohio to Oklahoma and everywhere inbetween)


    It looks like several (but not all) of these are from the St. Louis area.  I remember reading a post here from someone saying that most of the St. Louis area digi operators have decided to stick with the old system.  Does anyone know their reason for adamantly sticking with an old, inefficient, broken system? 

    -Jerome, W0JRT

  Jerome, most of the Digi's that you have listed are from St. Louis. In fact K0STL-15 I think is a club owned Digi. As for why they will not change I do not have an answer to this. I have moved my D700 back to my car as KC0RNP and plan on getting a GPS unit soon. 

  I do know that some APRS users have tried to get folks in the St. Louis area to change most of the time with out any luck. 

  I know it is not required that you check your Digi or APRS setting to be on APRS and nor do I think that one should have to "pay $" to use APRS but folks maybe we need to make it more clear that if your going to use APRS and your going to have a Digi you need to be using standards that help everyone. 

  Like Bob (the one that invinted APRS) stated in a post about Wide n-N it helps solve lots of issues that we had with the old APRS settings. One being that it cuts down on the QRM that other states see and even the local APRS users see. 

  Do I have an easy fix to people that don't wish to change. No, only thing I can say is to look up callsigns on QRZ or FCC Database and start writing letters. After that has been down that only other idea I have is to file a complant with the FCC like you would for someone that is jaming a Repeater or using his/her callsign in the wrong way. Why do I say do this, the reason is that we hams that want to use our equipment the "right way" and also in the best instrest of Ham Radio and APRS need to take a stand and let the people that don't want to do thing the "right way" or in the best instrest of Ham Radio know that we don't stand for them or what they are doing! 

  Yes folks I know that people will not like some of what I have posted in this email. However, it is time we take a stand and let the Digi owners that refuse to change his/her settings know that we are going to do everything in our power to see that they do things the "right way" and in the best instrest of Ham Radio. 

  I am sorry if I affend some Digi owners that have not and do not wish to change to Bob's new settings for APRS. I am also sorry for this email being so long but fell I needed to say what I have!

  -- 
  Richard Nicholas Piper IV
  KC0RNP


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