[aprssig] Please,standardize UTF-8 for APRS

[Lynn W. Deffenbaugh (Mr)]

UTF-8 is identical to ASCII for the ASCII values 32 through 126 (space 
through tilde).  If that's a normal equal sign (ASCII 61 0x3D) there 
should be no changes.  Is there something special about = that I don't know?

Lynn (D) - KJ4ERJ - Author of APRSISCE for Windows Mobile and now Win32!

Joel Maslak - N7XUC wrote:
> Will this change the preferred way of sending some characters like = ?
>
> On Dec 16, 2009, at 5:30 PM, "Robert Bruninga" <bruninga at usna.edu> wrote:
>
>>> Currently APRS-1.0.1 protocol says:
>>> US-ASCII, 7-BIT CHARACTERS.
>>> For us that is completely inadequate.
>>
>> In cleaning up old email, there were hundreds of emails back in
>> September on the topic of expanding the APRS spec to UTF-8 to
>> include all other languages in text messaging.  In the hundreds
>> of emails it is hard for me to remember the conclusion.
>>
>> But I have asked all authors to investigate and to date, no one
>> that I can remember said that transmitting a non USA ASCII
>> message in UTF-8 resulted in a failed packet.  Of course the
>> text displayed gyberish on non-compatible systems, but at least
>> they displayed that a "message" was received.  I expect gyberish
>> in old systems, but we must identify broken packets that do not
>> get parsed at all.
>>
>> So I have added to the APRS1.2 addendum that future systems may
>> use UTF-8 in text message fields and STATUS fields or at least
>> make sure that receipt of same does not break the packet for
>> display in some form.  www.aprs.org/aprs12.html
>>
>> We need to find and document all existing clients and systems
>> that fail a packet that contains UTF-8 text.  An example of a
>> "failed" packet would be a POSITION packet that has a UTF-8
>> text, and that text causes the client to ignore the POSITION.
>> These such incompatibilities must be documented as we move on...
>>
>> Bob, WB4APR
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> aprssig mailing list
>> aprssig at tapr.org
>> https://www.tapr.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/aprssig
>
> _______________________________________________
> aprssig mailing list
> aprssig at tapr.org
> https://www.tapr.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/aprssig
>