[aprssig] APRS Clients Blackberry

[Steve Dimse]

I've never heard of one, I'm sure someone will chime in if there is.

There is a problem with cell phone implementation of a traditional  
APRS client. You need to stay connected in order to continuously parse  
the incoming data. That means one of two choices: either you leave the  
APRS application in the foreground, or multitasking. Only the Palm Pre  
supports true multitasking at this point. I doubt one of the 30  
applications available for the Pre is APRS ;-)

The iPhone choses not to implement multitasking because of the drain  
on the battery. Read a review of the Pre, and you will see what  
happens when you start multitasking. An APRS application (whether  
foreground or background) could drain a cell phone's batteries in a  
few hours. Instead of multitasking Apple implemented a push  
notification service which causes no additional battery drain to the  
phone. Say someone sends a message to me. A web server could detect  
that, and send a notification to the phone, sounding a tone, placing  
an alert on the screen, and adding a numbered badge to the apps icon  
to indicate the number of waiting alerts. This system could allow a  
user to specify a number of other types of notifications, like a  
station within n miles, NWS alerts, etc. I hope the author of IBCNU  
for the iPhone will add this feature.

To me this approach makes much more sensethan a traditional APRS client.

Steve K4HG

On Jun 23, 2009, at 12:24 PM, Duane Whittingham wrote:

> Hi, i have a blackberry at work now and was wondering of there were  
> any APRS clients
> for the Blackberry platform, thanks.
>
> Duane
>
>
> -------------------------------------------------------
> Amateur Radio Operator
> Duane Whittingham - N9SSN
> Skywarn, ARES, SATERN
> City of Chicago CERT Member
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>
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