[aprssig] Universal Messaging (and new qAP feedback?)

[Robert Bruninga]

> Please re-read my previous post where 
> I explained how your mangling of the 
> q construct breaks the algorithm and 
> therefore APRS-IS.

I didn't see any explanation.  You just said it with no
explanation.  If the "q" construct is not extensible, then it
seems to be a poor design.

> Bob, your reply was nonsensical.  It 
> totally ignored everything I stated in my 
> post and it simply restated your lack of 
> understanding of what an IGate is and how 
> it fits in the APRS network.

Well, I guess we disagree.  OK, So we will come up with a new
packet format so that the Igates at the "APRS-IS==>RF" interface
can report back how they have handled a message packet.  This is
an APRS-IS packet only.  Key items in this packet should be:

1) The Igate's callsign.
2) A copy of the packet as it is sending to RF
3) An indicator of the RF path that it used
4) An indicator of the "rule" it used to Igate
5) Anything else?

We will define a new packet format, since we cannot just stuff
it into the PATH fields of the same packet, since it will be
rejected as a dupe by all the other APRS-IS processes.  How
about an experimental packet "{IP-.." Standing for Igate-Path...
Something like this:

IGATECALL>APXXXX,RULE:{IP-RF_PACKET_GOES_HERE

* Where APXXX lets us see the Igate software version
* RULE tells us what rule it used to decide to gate-to-RF
* {IP- is the experimental format for this new packet format
* RF_PACKET_GOES_HERE is the packet as it was transmitted on RF 

Something like that.  Then we can finally see what is happening
to messages "at the other end"!

Bob, WB4APR