[aprssig] most packets are transmitted blind (was: Please, standardize UTF-8)

[Robert Bruninga]

>> there are 350 other user packets flying 
>> around and most of them are blind transmitters 
>> that could care less what they collide with.
> 
> Do you have data to support this?  

Sure, cannot everyone see this?  I can see it any time I look at
my APRS station.  Just look at the list of all the stations you
hear DIRECT, and all the ones that you do not hear direct.  I
just did it now, and I have 241 stations on RF in the last 6
hours, and only FOUR I can hear direct... And only ONE is
another APRS user, and the other 3 are digis.
My antenna is at 80 feet and can see clear horizon out 3 to 10
miles in all directions.

That ratio is  99.6 % of all active stations I canot hear
direct, and only one user that I can possibly avoid colliding
with.   Im not talking about trackers, I am talking about ALL
aprs stations of any type.

Actually, I was surprised at today's count, since normally the
most other direct users I see are sometime 5 during the day and
out of 250 stations on the air within 90 miles, that's where I
get the 98% figure for blind transmitters that I cannot avoid
collisions with.

The reason my statistics today are only 250, is because a few
months ago, I cut back on my APRSdos range filter so that I
didn't clutter my lists, whereas before every time this topic
comes up, I had the range filter open wider and was getting in
the 350's...

So, today, there is only ONE user out of the 250 or so that I
could hear before I transmit in the greater baltimore,
washington DC. Virginia area to avoid a collision (one of the
highest APRS densities on the planet).

Now then lets say it is PRIME MOBILE time, and all 5 other
mobiles I can hear direct are on the road, and beaconing at a 2
minute rate.  My station (listens first), and AVOIDS those 5 out
of 120 time slots.  But when I hear silence, I have an equal
probability of colliding with any of the other 241 stations.
And there is nothing I can do to prevent that.

People need to understand how the ALOHA Packet channel with
digipeaters work, not just take the common platitudes and try to
apply them where they don't apply.

This topic was not about trackers at all.  It was simply a
statement of fact about how the APRS network works and how it is
a collision limited system, and so packets should be kept as
short as possible to maximize one's OWN probability of getting a
message packet through.

I was saying it was ill-conceived for people to be proposing 256
byte English messages and therefore 1024 byte long foreign
language packets on the national APRS channel where BREVITY is
the key to success!

That's why we call it text-messaging...

Bob, Wb4APR