[aprssig] APRStt Voice Channel outside the box

[Robert Bruninga]

I think people still miss the point of APRStt.
They are thinking inside a DTMF box.

Quite conversly, what users of APRStt (the other 95% of your
club) will experience mostly has nothing to do with DTMF.  They
simply tune into the APRStt channel and "listen" to APRS
information in the immediate local area.  For example at a
marathon where the lead vehicle has the call LEAD you will hear
once a minute:

"LEAD is 4.5 miles northeast of FINISH"  or
"TAIL is 3.5 miles south of START"  or
"W1VIP is .1 mile west of EOC"

And you will never hear a LAT/LONG.  Positions are reported as a
distance in a direction from the reference point.  The reference
point defaults to the APRStt gateway location, but the sysop, or
any APRStt user can change the reference point to anything else
in APRS by simple command.. such as "from the repeater" or "from
downtown" or "from FINISH", or from any other APRS station.
With this powerful technique, it is very easy to visualize the
tactical situation.

Remember, with only a few key presses such as QNM APRStt will
respond (by voice) with the nearest MOBILE to you...  Or QNW
will be the nearest Weather to you... Etc..

In a general purpose community APRStt for your club,  here are
some examples of some of the unsolicited information that they
might hear (if enabled):

- An APRS mobiles voice FREQ  if he has it in his beacon
- the local recommended voice freq object for travelers
- the location and speed of some special stations.
  A) Any TH-D7 that selects the  TRIANGLE ICON
  B) Any D700 or APRS mobile using the "/n" ICON
  C) Any one station enabled by the APRStt sysop or DTMF user
- the location of any new CALL that comes into the area
- the AZ & EL & Frequency of any satellite in view
- the TRAFFIC Speed past any TRAFFIC choke point...

So, think outside of the DTMF box!  APRStt is more about letting
the other members of your club or community "receive"(hear)
local APRS information of immediate interest than it is about
entering anything in DTMF.  

Imagine the possiblities for your next event (for both the voice
information) and for the remote data entry by anyone with an HT
or for just providing local info of value to voice mobiles on a
routine basis when you cannot raise anyone on the local
repeater.

The info on the original APRS Traffic monitoring system is on:
www.aprs.org/traffic/traffic.txt

And APRStt is on www.aprs.org/aprstt.html

Bob, WB4APR