[aprssig] APRS Hardware Survey

[Stephen H. Smith]

On 10/20/2011 11:51 AM, Ben Rampling wrote:
> Hello,
>
> I've done a quick survey of APRS equipment by the destination field of packets, and thought the results might be of interest to the list. The table below (at the end of this e-mail) includes all devices and software packages that were resolved in tocalls.txt and that were used by at least 10 unique callsigns in a recent 24 hour period. The data was taken from third.aprs.net (excluding CWOP data).
>
>
> The list:
>
>   5376 MIC-E
>   3431 UIview 32 bit apps [APU2]
>   1965 jAPRSIgate [APJI]
>   1807 Generic, (obsolete. Digis should use APNxxx instead) [APRS]
>   1183 Open Track [APOT]
>    906 UIdigi [APNU]
>    830 Kantronics KPC-3 rom versions [APN3]
>    735 Tiny Track III [APT3]
>    343 Xastir [APX]
>    312 APRSISCE win32 version [APWW]
>    299 APrsDRoid replaces old APAND1. [APDR]
>    237 APRS4R software interface [AP4R]
>    223 SV2AGW's AGWtracker [APAGW]
>    207 Tiny Track [APTT]
>    198 OpenAPRS - Greg Carter [APOA]
>    191 Gates, etc [APG]
>    177 for IRLP [APVR]
>    151<39 for OH2MQK's RX-igate [APRX]
>    148 Icom, etc [API]
>    136 UIDIGI
>    123 WinAPRS, etc [APW]
>    122 APRSd [APD]
>    110 Experimental [APZ]
>    104 Byons WXTrac [APTW]
>    101 Firenet [APF]
>     98 Experimental tracker by PE1RXQ [APERXQ]
>     95 DIGI_NED [APND]
>     93 D-Star originated posits [APDPRS]
>     77 U2APRS by JA7UDE [APDU]
>     77 APRS+SA, etc [APS]
>     71 for HaMDR trackers - hessu * hes.iki.fi] [APZMDR]
>     67 Telemetry devices [APE]
>     58 TNC-X  (K6DBG) [APNX]
>     52 UIview 16 bit applications [APU1]
>     52 KRAMstuff.com - Mark. G7LEU [APKRAM]
>     46 Kenwood D700's [APK1]
>     43 KetaiTracker by  JF6LZE, Takeki (msg capable) [APPT]
>     35 APRSISCE KJ4ERJ [APWM]
>     29 SQ3FYK WX/Digi  http://sq3fyk.com/?page_id=391 [APNW]
>     28 APRSdroid (replaced by APDRxx [APAND1]
>     23 Cellular applications [APC]
>     22 Liunx applications [APL]
>     21 Network nodes, digis, etc [APN]
>     20 MacAPRS, etc [APM]
>     20 Kantronics KPC-9612 Roms [APN9]
>     19 Kenwood D700 (APK101) type [APNK01]
>     17 Yeasu [APY]
>     14 Telit EZ10 GSM application ZS6CEY [APCLEZ]
>     13 Kenwood TH-D72 [APK003]
>     12 APRStt (Touch tone) [APRST]
>     11 EYTraker GPRS/GSM tracker by ZS6EY [APCLEY]
>     11 DF4IAN's WS2300 WX station [APWS]
>     10 aprsg igate software, OH2GVE [APRG]
>     10 HamHud, etc [APH]
>
>

The absurdly small representation of Kenwood D700's and TH-D72s, not to mention 
the complete lack of representation for any TH-D7s or D710s, indicates a major 
flaw in this kind of analysis.

All Mic-E devices replace the destination address (where the device ID usually 
is) with encoded latitude information for the standard position beacon.  The 
only time these devices will ever send the destination address (and therefore 
identify the sending device/software) is in status beacons (if sent), and 
during messages sent to another specific station.

Since the Kenwood radios use Mic-E format exclusively for standard position 
beacons (and TinyTracks can and frequently use this format also), most of the 
thousands of Mic-E counts are various Kenwood radios, along with a lot of 
TinyTrack IIIs and 4s.


Further, how is Firenet showing up in this list?   Firenet is essentially a 
clone of an APRS-IS server operating outside the APRS-IS (rather than a user 
transmitting to the APRS-IS).      Is someone gating data from the Firenet 
server into the APRS-IS,  making it appear as a virtual user?     If so, 
wouldn't the station doing the cross-gating show up instead as the "source"?    
What's going on here??


-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

--

Stephen H. Smith    wa8lmf (at) aol.com
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