[aprssig] Text Messaging Radios (a simple use)

[Greg D.]

Hi Joe,

As a general scheme for SMS communication, I'd agree with your "badly"
rating.  But as a practical solution to a real problem, I think it's
great.
 
Bob's message is at the core of Amateur Radio, that we should be applying our technical skills and creativity to solving practical communication problems in simple and elegant ways.  It is fun, as you note, to watch this in action.  One of those problems is the need for an out-of-band messaging channel to help the Net Control operator manage his/her workload, and the reality is that there aren't many APRS radios out there.  But nearly everyone has an autodialer memory or three in their HT, and there are lots of radios that can display received DTMF strings.  Put them together, and you've got a solution to the problem.

The bottom line is the reminder that we have many
ways to communicate, and many of them have remained hidden in product
features that were perhaps thought of in much more narrow
applications.  The rapidly fading repeater autopatch is a good example,
where pieces of the infrastructure (in this case the dialer memory) can
be reused for other purposes (sending an alphanumeric page).  

Don't let the label on the button limit what you can do with it.

Greg  KO6TH


> Date: Sat, 14 Feb 2009 13:50:16 -0500
> From: joe at dellabarba.com
> To: aprssig at tapr.org
> Subject: Re: [aprssig] Text Messaging Radios (a simple use)
> 
> I hate to say this, because I enjoy the creativity and hard work of the 
> APRS community greatly, but the text-messaging schemes seem like 
> recreating the SMS, but very badly. I have some background in teaching 
> "ordinary people" technical tasks and this seems next to impossible to 
> get any such group up to speed on in short order.
> If someone wants to go fixing stuff, how about APRS messaging? The 
> location aspect works great, but I have NEVER been able to get reliable 
> messaging going with anyone I wasn't in direct RF range of.
> 73
> Joe N3HGB

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