[aprssig] IS-to-RF proposal (rev b)

[Steve Dimse]

On Dec 29, 2011, at 5:50 PM, Andre wrote:

> Any linux or native windows tablet phone or notebook can be used for it

In that case you have completely missed the point of Bob's latest proposal. The idea is for the user to do nothing outside of the normal use of their client, and furthermore his focus is largely on the Apple iOS and Google Android devices that are becoming just the tiniest bit more popular than Windows and Linux phones and tablets!

> connected to agwpe or linux ax25 interface.
> For linux setup axipd to connect to a hub or directly to a gate, agwpe uses the axip driver from lu7did http://www.qsl.net/lu7did/bin/axipdrv/axipdrv.txt.
> both the hub and gateway use digined with agwpe and axipdrv or axipd.
> The gate is set to digipeat anything to be digied trough it's call from internet to rf: digipeat: 1,2 DIGI_CALL 1
> The hub is set to digipeat anything to all ports but the one it recieved on: digipeat: all * allbut keep0
> limiting is done with keep_time: 300 for 5 minutes
> 
This may not survive our cross-cultural QSO, but in the US there is a phrase: "There's Your Problem!"

Some people have failed to appreciate the influence Apple has had on the rest of the computing world. Users want things that "just work" now (actually they always did, they just didn't know it!) The systems that thrive today, like Android, do so because they emulate this central tenet of Apple's philosophy. As long as it takes the above kind of effort to make something work it is not going to catch on beyond a tiny circle of people that want things to be complex. 

It actually isn't a new idea, Apple has been promoting simplicity for a quarter century. I'd been influenced by that for a decade when I created the mechanism for internet to RF messaging. I made sure it worked without modification to the clients nor required any special actions on the users' part. An intercontinental QSO through the internet looked exactly the same as one with their neighbor over 2 meters. It would not have caught on if the user had to buy new hardware and install new software and drivers, then decide where to connect to have two way messaging. 

You may want to reconsider your user experience if you want this to be popular.

Steve K4HG