[aprssig] aprssig Digest, Vol 55, Issue 24

[jimlux]

It  wasn't/isn't "Positiion" reporting.   The original usage was:

      Automatic PACKET Reporting System


Interesting..

Of course, the ARRL book by Stan WA1LOU is titled:
APRS -- Moving Hams on Radio and the Internet
-- A Guide to the Automatic Position Reporting System

and ARRL's book by Steve Ford mentions:
APRS – The Automatic Position Reporting System: Track moving objects on 
maps (other stations, public service vehicles, marathon runners, etc.). 
Connect your own GPS receiver and transmit your location even as you’re 
moving!

And, APRS.net calls it position...


Even Bob's "orignal aprs.txt" on the aprs.org website says
AUTOMATIC PACKET/POSITION REPORTING SYSTEM (APRS)
although that may be a bit of revisionism in action (since he revised it 
in 2002)

The wayback machine shows that the earliest page it captured from 
http://www.aprs.org/ is
http://web.archive.org/web/19981212012612/http://aprs.org/

and it says "position"  (Although, that page isn't Bob's, like aprs.org 
is today. It more resembles the aprs.net page..perhaps there was some 
changing of domain ownership...)

But a more recent page
http://web.archive.org/web/20051227080715/www.ew.usna.edu/~bruninga/aprs.html

(redirected from http://www.aprs.org/ in 2006)

Also says Automatic Position Reporting System.



As another has commented.. I think the horse is out of the barn there.. 
APRS is now, and probably always will be, perceived as primarily a 
position reporting system.

Jim