[aprssig] Universal APRS messaging Opportunities!

[Greg D.]

> 
>>> ... the old fuds... need to learn 
>>> from the kids the value of text
>>> messaging for immediate contact.
>> 

I think you guys are missing something fundamental here.  SMS messaging between kids is a point-to-point communication.  APRS, as Bob continually reminds us, is about situational awareness.  It's many to many.  I suppose if you do enough SMSing it may look like many to many, but fundamentally it's not.  It's the same difference that makes person to person phone calls not effective in supporting a community event or disaster callout, where the local 2m repeater or a common simplex frequency works so well.

I submit that ARPS is more like a mobile version of what kids do with Facebook, MySpace, and chat rooms - obsessively continual updates to their friends on where they are and what they're doing.  It's what the engineers are investing lots of money building into the iPhone and Google G1, through their cell-based connection to the Internet (and expecting to reap a return on that investment).  Hams have had it, and been doing, it for years, and there's no $$$/month data plan or $.0$/message fees to use it.  

Greg  KO6TH



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