[aprssig] Some Quick Impressions of the Dayton Hamvention 2007 -- APRS -- Kenwood TM-D710

[Steve Bragg]

Bob Burns W9RXR wrote: 

> At 01:37 AM 5/21/2007, Stephen H. Smith wrote: 
> >I was finally told that the D710 probably won't be available until 
> >early fall. [snip] 
> Both the U.S. rep and "Shin" said that the D710 firmware was still in 
> development and that few details were still being worked out. I asked 
> about Smart Beaconing, but was told that the D710 would have 
> "something better". I was also told that "Shin" had spent a lot of 
> time with Bob Bruninga at the TAPR conference discussing APRS 
> features for this radio. Bob may or may not be able to confirm what 
> they discussed. 

It seems several people asked Kenwood about SmartBeaconing for the D710, because several such tales were told over at the HamHUD booth. 

My guess is that "something better" means WB4APR's "PROPORTIONAL PATHING" (PP). While PP may help QRM issues as well as SmartBeaconing, it certainly does not produce any improvement in the appearance of a map track over fixed-timed posits, because the positions are in fact still being sent at fixed intervals. In contrast, SmartBeaconing includes both corner-pegging and speed-variable beaconing, which not only improve the QRM situation, but also produce useful map tracks, and allow dead reckoning to truly work.  SmartBeaconing has been adopted and refined by many APRS software and devices, including HamHUD (II and V), UIView, APRS+SA, SmartPalm, OpenTracker, TinyTrak, TNC-X, and APRS Deluxe.  It's well accepted by the APRS community, which begs the question: why won't Kenwood adopt it?

Speculative 73's, 

Steve KA9MVA 

"The HamHUD Guy"