[aprssig] tactical call identifier packet

[Curt, WE7U]

On Wed, 23 Jul 2008, Curt, WE7U wrote:

> On Wed, 23 Jul 2008, Wes Johnston wrote:
>
>> Could we create a new packet type that would force the display of
>> a tactical callsign instead of an object's real callsign?
>
> APRS+SA already has such a packet.  One APRS+SA system can send it
> to others to set the same tactical calls on all APRS+SA listening
> stations.  I had intended to implement this in Xastir at some point.
> I believe it's on our feature request list somewhere.  Search on
> "tactical".

Just looked:  Xastir's feature request list has this entry:

-------------------------------------------------------------------
   SAR: Tactical Callsigns      Private: (?) No
   Transmit/Receive tactical callsigns as in APRS+:

   "To set your own TAC callsign, send an APRS message to "TACTICAL",
    and put your callsign in the message text. To set others TAC call,
    send an APRS message to "TACTICAL", and enter:

       CALL1=TAC1;CALL2=TAC2;CALL3=TAC3, etc...

    The '=' and ';' characters can not be in the TAC callsign."
-------------------------------------------------------------------

Tactical callsigns are implemented in Xastir but for the local
display only.  We've made great use of these for special events but
currently have to coordinate the tactical calls across stations via
a separate method.

We made heavy use of these at the Seattle Marathon and they worked
great.  KD7NM was on the other side of the link and we coordinated
the TAC calls via separate messaging.

If we add Xastir code to send and decode messages in the above
APRS+SA format we can interoperate with Xastir and APRS+SA stations:
Much better capability than we have now, plus better than dropping
the whole scheme because some (most) stations don't implement it!

I use the local-display-only tactical scheme at home quite a bit.
My friends move around the screen with their names instead of their
callsigns.  It's even more handy for SAR missions or special events
with tags like these:

     ICP
     Air1
     Team1
     Dog Team 3
     Horse Team 1
     SAG1
     SAG3

Perhaps I'll get interested in implementing the send/receive
tactical messages soon.  I'll need to find somebody running Windows
to test APRS+SA against the revised Xastir code though.  It's sure
hard to find a Windows box these days to test on.  ;-)

-- 
Curt, WE7U.				archer at eskimo dot com
http://www.eskimo.com/~archer
   Lotto:  A tax on people who are bad at math. - unknown
Windows:  Microsoft's tax on computer illiterates. - WE7U.
The world DOES revolve around me:  I picked the coordinate system!"