[aprssig] APRS RF-ID

[Robert Bruninga]

Regarding RFID check-ins at the EOC:
>> Bingo, the EOC computers -know- he is there!
>>
> How does this help my situational awareness, 
> assuming I am not at the EOC? I really don't 
> care who's there..

Maybe others might need to know where amateur radio operator X
is.  And individual X does not have APRS, but when he is at EOC,
at least that would be one less "voice query" to offload from
the voice net ("Does anyone know where X is"?)

> At the EOC, it adds nothing to the information 
> the non-ham incident managers need. 

I agree.  We are not talking about sharing this beyond the hams.
Knowing where the hams are is what the hams need to manage their
resources.  And APRS is just one tool to help us do that... To
know where key players are, and how to contact them.

> They can walk over to the amateur station and 
> SEE who is there.. why clutter the map with 
> this knowledge? Why waste time implementing it??

Because that is what the map is for.  To help us manage our
amateur radio network, people and assets.  That approach to
information and situational awareness appears to be suggesting
that "we don't need any information beyond what we already know
that we need.  And if we need any more information about
anything, we will go asking for it or looking for it then when
we need it".  It is that kind of repetative routine voice
traffic asking for "where is this?, has anyone seen that?"  That
APRS can help reduce on our voice nets...

APRS has benefit in helping the amateur community to manage its
assests by knowing approximately where everyone is in our
networks and more recently, what frequency they are on.  In this
case, having a simple "check-in" process for hams at the EOC, or
clubhouse, or anywhere else that large numbers of hams gather
can help that process, without having to require every single
ham to carry a GPS and APRS everwyehre he goes.

See www.aprs.org/aprs-rfid.html

Again, my proposal is that at the national level where we have
large enough numbers, the ARRL coordinates the purcahse of RFID
tags that we can embed in our ARRL (or AMSAT) or ARES or
whatever callsign tags that contain nothing but our callsigns.
That is all we need to know to gain an order of magnitude better
potential for keeping track of our assets (our people)...

Bob, Wb4aPR