[aprssig] DCC thoughts

[Bob Bruninga]

Report from DCC:

My APRS talk emphasized the new things:
- Addition of user Frequency to APRS
- Addition of Repeater Frequency Objects
- Addition of IRLP/Echolink freq objects
- APRS is not vehicle tracking, but INFO coms
- Display of local info in mobiles
- APRStt TOuchtone is now in beta (to involve all hams)
- APRS on the OLPC (OLPCS will go on sale again in Nov)
- ITEM-in-Message so we can send objects through IGates
- Integration of APRS and IRLP/Echolink for global ham radio cellphone operation callsign-to-callsign.

This last item has been a long range goal of APRS since about 2001.  What is interesting here is that that is also a goal of DSTAR.  To do universal end-to-end voice contact callsign-to-callsign.

There was lots of DSTAR at DCC, but it was this similarity of universal voice contact using only callsigns in both APRS and DSTAR that struck me as exciting. 

Pete Lovel AE5PL also presented D-PRS to explain how DSTAR mobiles appear on APRS.

Bob, WB4APR