[aprssig] X-APRS: a new protocol in APRSdroid

[Georg Lukas]

Hi all,

in the past I've often realized that APRS-IS does not work well with
mobile TCP/IP - latency on 2G or 3G causes delays that skew the position
reports; interruptions in the data connection are almost impossible to
detect at application level, and thus cause packet drops, etc.

On the other hand, with my other project (yaxim, a mobile client for the
Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol / XMPP), all of these
problems have been solved years ago. Now I have come to the conclusion
that APRS and XMPP have many things in common:

- They are both network protocols to send real-time GPS and message
  packets.
- They are mainly parsed by computers and displayed in a processed form.
- Both have a vast network of distributed servers to distribute data.
- For both, there are sophisticated web interfaces available.
- etc.

Therefore, I decided to bring together the best of both worlds and
created X-APRS: a revival of APRS based on the XMPP protocol.

You can find the protocol specification with color-coded examples here:

https://aprsdroid.org/xaprs/

Starting with the upcoming version 1.4, APRSdroid will only support
X-APRS over TCP/IP and HamNet, and legacy ARPS will be slowly phased
out.

However, this should not be a problem, as the new protocol will also be
supported by aprs2net and aprs.fi (expect separate announcements soon).
Client and server developers are encouraged to jump in and implement the
protocol, using one of the many available XMPP libraries.

You can have a peek at the data stream by issuing one of the following
commands:

	telnet xaprs.aprsdroid.org 20482
	telnet 44.139.11.254 20482

73 from Germany,

Georg DO1GL

-- 
APRSdroid - Open Source APRS Client for Android | http://aprsdroid.org/m
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.aprsdroid.app | @APRSdroid
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: signature.asc
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 833 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://lists.tapr.org/pipermail/aprssig_lists.tapr.org/attachments/20170401/d17bac59/attachment.asc>