[aprssig] Lotsa ears, big mouth concept.

[Keith VE7GDH]

Wes AI4PX wrote...

> Just to throw something playful / constructive out there.  I had an
> idea a few weeks ago about how to have a digipeater "network"
> that has many receivers and one transmitter.  This is just a concept
> so bear with me.
>
> 1)have one high centrally located digi.  Output on 144.39 (or your
> local aprs frequency). This site has a 70cm transceiver for getting
> data from the yet to be described receiver sites.
> 2)have several low receiver sites around town. They listen on 144.39
> and send all data (KISS frames?) over the 70cm link to the main site.

It almost sounds like you are trying to replace the principal of having
fill-in digis that respond to WIDE1-1 at low elevations and high digis
that respond as well to WIDEn-N. If you were successful in getting
everything from all digis on the described network from a large enough
area to the "big mouth" digi, you could end up with a situation where
the "big mouth" digi was transmitting almost continuously even if it
couldn't hear everything that the low digis were hearing. When APRS was
new and there were very few users (before I became involved) it was
probably a good idea to have high digis. Now that the number of APRS
users has increased, and especially in areas where there is very high
density of APRS users, having high digis is counter-productive. Up to
a point, your described network could be useful. Once APRS use increased
to the point where it is spewing out packets well outside the individual
users ALOHA circle, it could end up being not useful.

Just my thoughts. Perhaps someone else can see some benefit from this.

73 es cul - Keith VE7GDH
--
"I may be lost, but I know exactly where I am!"