[aprssig] DARPA "balloon hunt" APRS TEST!

[Robert Bruninga]

I completely reverse again my position.

I can think of nothing more suited to Amateur Radio and APRS in
particular to meet this Networking Challenge:

"...timely communication, wide area team-building and urgent
mobilization required to solve broad scope, time-critical
problems."

APRS and ham radio should use this DARPA test opportunity to see
how quickly APRS can be used to report instantaneous coordinated
events (THINK attacks).

Clearly that is the purpose of this Defence Advanced Research
Project, not to see how well the Facebook potato heads can
tweet...

I say we go for it. Since organizations MAY NOT submit entries,
there is NO pecuniary interest in APRS participation in this
COMMUNICATION test, nor by the people that spot balloons and
report them.  All mobiles have to do is send a message to RED
and keep their position within one mile of the balloon until the
message is acked.  It would be helpful if the message could
contain direction and distance info like... ".5 mile West of me"
so that the automated system gets the posit right.

So.. Will anyone write the code that I detailed below?

* Looks for messsages to "RED" and on-receipt:
* CAPTURES POSITION of callsign of sender
* Builds the list of reports
* while comparing distances between reports to merge dupes
* as soon as list >= 5 AND
* with suitable DISTANCE between them 
* IT SENDS IN THE EMAIL TO CLAIM SUCCESS!

* There is NO pecuniary interest by the senders.!
* It is a communications test

If I could write the code, I'd do it!

Bob, Wb4APR

> >> I personally would find it hard not to consider 
> >> that using amateur radio to pursue a $40K prize 
> >> as anything but a pecuniary interest. 
> > 
> > Hummh... Got me there!
> 
> OK, so it looks like a GREAT DAY for  APRS 
> balloon launchs.  We track them with APRS and 
> so will all the world as the word gets
> out.  Launch several...
> 
> Problem is, that a typical balloon is only 
> visible for a few minutes at most in the area 
> of launch and from then on, its out
> of sight and out of mind.  So maybe a SLOW 
> assent would be best...  Also makes for 
> quicker recovery...
> 
> Bob, WB4APR