[aprssig] Please,standardize UTF-8 for APRS

[Heikki Hannikainen]

On Mon, 21 Sep 2009, Robert Bruninga wrote:

>> UTF-8 would be very, very good for everyone involved
> (including
>> Sergej), even if your particular character set happens to fit
>> within 8
>> bits.
>
> Can someone do a test to see what the  D7, D700, D710, VX8R and
> HAMHUD  display when they receive a UTF-8 message (in English)
> just to see what kind of backward compatilibty issue would
> result.

I repeat: No issues whatsoever.

A normal english message (like this one here) is transmitted exactly the 
same way in both ASCII and UTF-8, on the wire or over the air. The kenwood 
will never know the difference, because there isn't any.

This message, when there are no scandinavian or cyrillic or japanese 
characters present, is both valid ASCII and valid UTF-8. They are the 
same.

There are differences in UTF-8 and ASCII only when non-ASCII characters 
are transmitted. In that case, you'll probably see rubbish, but that can 
be fixed later.

> Since those radios represent many tens of thousands of existing
> messaging users and probably 99% of all HARDWARE (unchangeable)
> code, it would be nice to see the effect.

There is no effect, as long as you don't transmit characters which are not 
present in the ASCII set.

   - Hessu