[aprssig] Smart beaconing and the tragedy of the commons

[Robert Bruninga]

> > 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.
> 
> You do? What device (hardware or softare) are you using that
uses 
> SmartBeaconing? 

None, I am watching its impact on the network.  That is what
counts, not how many packets I can squeeze on to it personally
to give me the perfect track.

> If you have plenty of experience with SmartBeaconing, 
> why aren't you explaining it to "us" instead of asking 
> for a good definition of settings? 

Because I don't use it. . To me APRS is a real-time
comunications system, not a maping or plot-my-best-track system.
. Since I don't use it, I thought it would be best if those of
you that do, would  come to a consensus as to the optimum
settings that give you what you want, but not at the expense of
others so that we can all feel comfortable with it.

> ... I actually try and contact the owners of mis-
> configured APRS stations. .  Most of the time I have 
> had good success. 

Problem is, most of these are TRACKERS and there is no way to
easily contact the owners. . But YES, I ALWAYS at least QRZ them
and if they have an email address I send them an email. . And
they usually say OK, they will fix it.  But then it often just
keeps going, or it returns the next time they want an exact
track and then forget again to change it back when they are
done.

> SmartBeaconing doesn't kill the APRS network. 
> APRS users kill it... if whatever they are 
> using isn't configured properly.

Which is exactly my point.  Human error exists and guarantees we
will always have some bad settings.  That is why I am asking for
what kind of bounds we should place on these settings to make
sure that we protect the network from these mistakes.

WB4APR, Bob