[aprssig] spaces in object names (meaning)

[Pete Loveall AE5PL Lists]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Bob Bruninga
> Sent: Thursday, August 13, 2009 12:04 PM
> 
> >  We display them the same.  We store them
> > in the same tables.  We therefore equate
> > Object names to station callsigns.  In fact,
> > IMO, this has been a great disservice to
> > the APRS community.  An APRS station is an
> > -active- transmitter (or APRS-IS client)
> > that may have two-way communications capability.
> > An Object is something created by an APRS
> > station that has no APRS communications
> > capability...
> 
> OOPS... there is where the error in interpretation was made.

As I indicated in the post you referenced, IMO your interpretation (which I do not dispute) is a great disservice to the APRS community.  The protocol has built into it the very basis of all tactical communications that I am familiar with (which extends well beyond amateur radio).  That basis is summarized in the following 2 statements:

Show me what my active entities are and which ones can I communicate with immediately.
Show me what are created entities and which ones are time-sensitive.

The first statement is covered with posits indicating messaging capability.  The second statement is covered by Items and Objects, respectively.

Where the implementation of APRS has failed IMO is to disregard the second statement and make it possible for me to not know what my active entities are because someone just usurped them with created objects.  IMO, this makes APRS much less useful as a tactical communications protocol by hamstringing it with this restriction of "everything is the same".

It is true that we have done a very poor job of presenting the various information distinctly but that is simply a programming issue, not a technical issue.  However, if the belief is that tactical communications users don't care what is real and what is created, then the current development of software appears reasonable.

This is a base disagreement in what is desired in a tactical communications protocol and a base disagreement in how APRS clients should be implemented.  I see it as such and leave it as such.

73,

Pete Loveall AE5PL
pete at ae5pl dot net