[aprssig] APRS messaging (was Re: How to do a HIKING APRS event!)

[Guido Trentalancia]

Hi Bob !

On Mon, 2011-05-09 at 17:52 -0400, Bob Bruninga wrote:
> APRS provided great tracking of the 4 SWEEP hikers and nearly 150 event
> runners at the Hike Across Maryland event.  We used 144.39 +600 split
> digipeating for a tripling of packet reliability to well above 90% from the
> poor 30% or less on previous attempts with normal operations on 144.39
> simplex.  You can see a summary of these techniques on the web page:

[cut]

> In contrast, I just dont understand why hams have such a complete aversion
> to the value of APRS text messaging!  We have hams that have owned their
> APRS radios for nearly a decade and do not send or respond to any text
> message information.

In my opinion hams do not have aversion to APRS text messaging but
instead they have complete aversion to entering text on APRS radios
currently available in the marketplace. Consider most people use APRS on
the move...

So, I am quite sure there is nothing wrong with the protocol itself. We
could extend it one day to support longer messages, exactly as it
happened for GSM SMS but this is not urgent or strictly necessary.

The point is that, where technically feasible, vendors should really
come up with an accessory which provides a small detachable keyboard to
enter APRS text messages easily and conveniently. But this has nothing
to do with the APRS protocol.

73,

Guido IZ6RDB