[aprssig] Why Not "Gate in Vicinity" because its a bad idea

[Georg Lukas]

* Bob Bruninga  <bruninga at usna.edu> [2011-12-26 18:53]:
> > Where I live, the total APRS activity is around 
> > one packet every five minutes. 
> That is an EXCELLENT APRS channel.  That would suggest a 99.3%
> probability of RF packet success.  Most people would envy such a
> reliable channel.

Sorry, but by following that argument I come to the conclusion that an
100% idle APRS channel is the best one, because it has a 100%
probability of success. However, it is also the most useless one because
you get zero information from it.

> Yikes!  With 40,000 APRS-IS users in real time, that could be only
> 40,000 packets per minute.  Kinda hard to do on a 1200 baud channel
> that is optimum at about 6 packets per minute or less.

Probably I should have mentioned the obvious thing first:
position/object/other packets can only be forwarded from IS if the
originating station is located nearby to the igate (the exact range of
course depends on the RF range of the igate and on the presence of other
nearby reverse igates).

There is no use in forwaring the full APRS-IS stream! Sorry that I gave
you that impression.

Of course, even local position forwarding goes counter the current
definition of an RX/TX iGate, as pointed out by Pete. I see that the
limitation to MSG only is useful where the APRS channel is saturated
already.

However, there are many places where APRS is (mostly) idle, and
providing IS-to-RF there would actually increase its use to the
operators. This is all I had on my mind when starting the discussion.


Kind regards and Merry Christmas,

Georg DO1GL
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