[aprssig] Smart beaconing and the tragedy of the commons

[Keith VE7GDH]

Earl KD5XB wrote...

> Well, when a mobile sends a beacon every 1/4 mile PLUS 
> every time the road bends more than about 5 degrees...

I have watched a number of stations that I knew were using SmartBeaconing 
and it isn't always obvious, but this is probably more a comment about 
channel loading than whether they were using SmartBeaconing or not. You gave 
an example of a station beaconing "every 1/4 mile plus bends of more than 5 
degrees..." my first thoughts wouldn't be of whether the station was using 
SmartBeaconing or not. Obviously beaconing every quarter mile is not 
responsible in most situations. That would translate to every every 30 
seconds at 30 mph or every 15 seconds at 60 mph. Both would be over-kill on 
a shared channel. Any corner pegging that happened to be going on would 
almost be lost in the noise. Also, a bend of 5 degrees just wouldn't be 
obvious on a map unless it was a constant curve covering a very great 
distance, but a series of beacons heard at every 90 degree corner would 
start to look a bit more obviously like corner pegging.

I'm not looking for an arguement. I'm just observing that in the real world, 
determining if a station is using SmartBeaconing or not isn't always 
obvious. Admittedly, if the SmartBeaconinng station is very close to me to 
the point of capturing my receiver over all other beacons heard and thus no 
missed position reports, the corner pegging would make it more apparent.

Bottom line... I think that most people would agree that SmartBeaconing is a 
good thing. Like anything else, it needs to be configured properly. A mis-
configured device is a mis-configured device.

73 es cul - Keith VE7GDH
--
"I may be lost, but I know exactly where I am!"