[aprssig] Smart beaconing and the tragedy of the commons

[Robert Bruninga]

> ...I for one am a little bit irritated that you 
> repeatedly blast SmartBeaconing while 
> having no experience with it.

I have plenty of experience with it.  Most any day,  most any
time.  All I have to do in my APRS is hit the SORT by LOAD
button and see who is hitting out 99 beacons per hour (the max I
capture), and it invariably is people running smart beaconing.

Yes, -those- users are very happy with smart-beaconing, since
every single stop, start, turn and run is precisely documented
as they run around town or commute.  I am sure they are very
pleased with smart beaconing.  But it is at the expense of
everyone else.

To me, NUMBER ONE in APRS is the network, and sharing it
equitibly among all users and getting consistent results.  In
most areas, we simply cannot afford to have every corner pegged
for every user!  If people want nice tracks, then they should
record their own GPS data and play it back on their own PC.  Not
try to do this on a single 1200 baud channel trying to be shared
by 100 other users.

Again, I ask everyone to please step back, and read the "tragedy
of the commons" (on the fix14439 page).  Place the equitable
sharing of the network formost in your mind and lets work
together to come up with some smart beaconing settings that are
equitable, under all conditions.  (since the number one problem
is set-and-forget human nature)...

If we can come  up with a smart beaconing algorithm that is best
for the network and fails-safe, then I am happy to support it.

Bob, WB4APR