[aprssig] APRS Frequency info?

[Bob Bruninga]

It takes a villiage... (APRS villiage that is)...

Today I scanned local RF and found a lot more than a dozen packets that were not using the new format for Frequency in their APRS packets.  I emailed each callsign at arrl.net the following email.  

Local APRS area coordinaors might consider doing the same in their area. 

A discrete FREQUENCY field was added to APRS over the last many years, and so most systems already on the air are not aware of this new tool through no fault of their own.  So help your breathern out by pointing them to the new format.  Here is what I emailed out:

QUOTE:

Dear fellow APRS op..

Please ignore this message if you got it before.  I just scan
packets every now and then, and may see you more than once...

I noticed your station or object the other day that was trying
to show your operating frequency.  Since about 2002, we have
been trying to get the use of frequency in APRS standardized so that software authors can write to these standards.  This opens up an entirely new dimension to APRS.

In response, at least the new Kenwoods can parse this
information and instantly QSY at the press of the TUNE button.
We hope to get FINDU and other APRS assets to also support this frequency information format. But the frequency information must be in the standard APRS format as detailed on the following web page:

http://www.ew.usna.edu/~bruninga/localinfo.html.

Anyway, I think I saw one of your packets that did not seem to
be in this new standard format. Either the frequency or the TONE was off.  The TONE is only entered as "Tnnn" with the tenths of Hz dropped.  So 89.9 tone is actually indicated as T089 etc.  The freq must be FFF.FFFMHz as the first 10 bytes of your beacon text as part of your status, or it needs to be an object in the formats shown on the web page.  The tone has to be next.

I wonder if you would consider looking at your object or packet and see if it would make sense for you to put it in this new standard format?  Thanks.  

To see if it works, ask someone with a D7 or D700 or D710 to see how it looks.  It should not word-wrap in the wrong places.  And the D710 should display your frequency on its display list in the new FREQUENCY column.  If so then the D710 operator can QSY to your frequency by simply hitting his TUNE button.

Again, if I pointed this out to you before, please ignore me.  I'm just occasionally monitoring packets and looking for things we can fix...

Thanks
Bob, WB4APR
-------------- next part --------------
An embedded message was scrubbed...
From: "Robert Bruninga" <bruninga at usna.edu>
Subject: FW: APRS Frequency info?
Date: Thu, 3 Jul 2008 17:34:57 -0400
Size: 3220
URL: <http://lists.tapr.org/pipermail/aprssig_lists.tapr.org/attachments/20080704/e620d098/attachment.eml>