[aprssig] APRS TNC Digi Tracker now with built-in GPS receiver

[Heikki Hannikainen]

On Sun, 25 Oct 2009, Chris Moulding wrote:

> I did a lot of work during the development phase to see if it was worth 
> adding Smart Beaconing. The conclusion I came to was that it was very 
> difficult to get Smart Beaconing to work in UK and European conditions. I 
> understand that it's designed to transmit a packet with a change of 
> direction. We don't have the grid system of city streets over here so the 
> beacon rate driving in towns and cities ends up far higher than just running 
> a timed beacon every two or three minutes. The large roundabouts (traffic 
> circles?) at motorway junctions also cause many rapid bursts of packets. I 
> like the idea of the reduced rate when stationary and that appears to be the 
> only benefit over here. I've nothing against Smart Beaconing, these are just 
> my observations. If anyone has any suggested settings I would be willing to 
> try them.

I've been very happy with Smart Beaconing. I run it with settings which 
make it normally transmit a packet fairly rarely (once per a few minutes 
when driving at a high speed, and once per 20 minutes when standing 
still), but when turning in a corner, the Smart Beaconing triggers and 
sends a packet right away. There is also a limiter setting in my config 
which says that there must be at least 60 seconds between two transmitted 
packets, so I only transmit a single packet in the roundabout (no rapid 
bursts at all!).

But I always transmit the single packet in the roundabout or junction 
(instead of a minute before and after the junction), so the track line 
follows my route on the roads very cleanly.

   - Hessu