[aprssig] Iridium humbles APRS

[Brian Moore]

Bob, I can't thank you enough for your APRS system, I am a new ham and
still a technician class one at that. I am a huge proponent of APRS and see
its benefits for every ham. I hear your frustration when someone shows you
up with a multi-billion dollar satellite system like Iridium, and discards
APRS as a toy. Although a few weeks ago I read an email from you talking
about a satellite constellation for APRS on 145.825, and that could rival
Iridium's usefulness. It would not have the bandwidth, nor the operational
costs. Something like that would enhance the current terrestrial based APRS
network on 144.390, making truly global tracking, messaging, and
situational awareness possible without a need for new gear on the user end.
People use simple HT's to make contact through satellites every day.

I won't carry on much more, I just wanted to state that at least some of us
out here are aware of the boon to overall capabilities APRS adds as a
whole, your ideas are not falling on deaf ears. I don't go a day without
telling someone about APRS.

Thank you, Brian KD0QCT


On Sat, Apr 7, 2012 at 7:13 AM, Jason KG4WSV <kg4wsv at gmail.com> wrote:

> On Fri, Apr 6, 2012 at 4:06 PM, Bob Bruninga <bruninga at usna.edu> wrote:
>
> > $950 unit cost...
>
> > leverage off the DOD Gateway... $250/mo... all the bandwidth you want...
> > NSF paying $1.2M per year for irridium.. "paying for SIM cards"...
>
> >  THey just got $2.3B to build the next
> > network..
>
> That sounds cool if you've got the application and the budget, but
> looking at it another way: for the price of an expensive unit, plus
> monthly service fee, using only a few billion $$ in infrastructure,
> you can be connected.  Sounds like cell phones.
>
> I don't see how this can "humble" or even compare to APRS; they are
> very different communications systems.  As I tell my students, if I
> have two D7s I have a complete digital and voice communications
> network.  Doesn't matter if natural disaster takes down the cell phone
> towers, or if i'm on the dark side of the moon or mars.
>
>
> -Jason
> kg4wsv
>
> _______________________________________________
> aprssig mailing list
> aprssig at tapr.org
> https://www.tapr.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/aprssig
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.tapr.org/pipermail/aprssig_lists.tapr.org/attachments/20120407/a14fd5e0/attachment.html>