[aprssig] Please, standardize UTF-8 for APRS

[Bob Snyder]

On Mon, Sep 21, 2009 at 7:41 PM, Keith VE7GDH <ve7gdh at rac.ca> wrote:
> While not intending to cause too much furor (oops, too late... I clicked
> on send!), didn't the aviation industry (search for ICAO language
> proficiency) come up with a way to standardize communication
> between planes and air traffic controllers many years ago?

Sure. English is the default common language that should always be an
option for pilots and ATC (ATC is required to know English as well as
any local languages, and pilots on international flights must either
know either the local languages where they're flying or English).
However, if you go and listen to Montréal Approach on LiveATC
(http://www.liveatc.net/search/?icao=cyul) as an example, you'll hear
the communications flip between French and English pretty regularly,
it's not just English.

Actually not too different than ham radio. English tends to be the
lingua franca for QSOs between different countries/languages, but
within a country, the local language is used. This discussion seems to
be a push to make APRS relevant for local communications, something
APRS was designed to do well.

If modifying the standard to allow UTF-8 doesn't impact communications
in English-speaking countries, I don't personally see a huge issue
with it, even if the D700 and friends display garbage when trying to
interpret a multi-byte character.

Bob N2KGO