[aprssig] What is APRS, really?
Nick VA3NNW
tapr at noseynick.com
Sat Oct 24 00:01:44 EDT 2020
Ev Tupis via aprssig wrote:
> APRS is the IoT of amateur radio
I've love that argument, and have used it before too! I contracted for a
while with a bleeding-edge IoT company, who thought everything they were
doing was brand new. I told them "pffffft, radio hams have been doing
most of this for well over a quarter-century, they call it APRS, let me
show you"... And APART FROM needing a ham license instead of cell
coverage, I managed to show them examples of ALMOST(*) all of their
target markets - vehicle/item/person tracking, collecting weather /
other instrumentation data, SMS-like short message traffic, people
connecting up all sorts of crazy stuff like door bells and water wheels,
and central archives that can be queried for history and even plotting
pretty graphs of the weather data and stuff. :-D
(*) ... and when I say ALMOST - I bet AT LEAST one of you somewhere is
sending back more than vehicle location+speed, but a bunch of other
vehicle metrics like voltages, pressures, fluid levels, or something...
am I right?
And I KNOW some of you are sending things like
solar/battery/water/septic level monitoring from their remote off-grid
cottages :-)
> ... general hobbyists to transport small data packets of all types
> (let your imagination run) from geographically separated
> locations...many without Internet service.
Like many others, my club has launched and tracked a near-space balloon.
This is something you specifically CAN'T do with cellular phone tech due
to all sorts of "line of sight" issues from high altitude, almost the
opposite of a coverage problem - you break their network by being
visible to FAR TOO MANY base stations. APRS collects but de-dupes this
beautifully, or of course tracking vehicles can receive direct without
needing a network in between.
> ...public service and emergency communication groups like RACES and
> ARES to add situational awareness data to first responders of all types;
Yup. my club has also used some APRS tracking of vehicles, volunteers
and supplies, and also "adding extra items to the map" for a local
marathon (the route, water stations, first aid locations, first/last
runners). The resulting maps were of course useful EVEN TO UNLICENSED
PEOPLE.
> ...and even more. Think about all of the services that the public
> "Internet of Things" and texting provide. Now, know that amateur
> radio and APRS has been doing it since before the Internet existed and
> can continue to provide those services when disaster takes the
> Internet offline even on a local basis.
Yup, or indeed things like the high altitude problem above. :-)
There are many times and places where cellular tech isn't appropriate or
reliable or even available. Sat phone is SOMETIMES a very expensive
alternative (equipment, subscription, data charges, not to mention
batteries and power).
We'll see how Elon's sky-cluttering project changes this, my best guess
is you're NOT going to get the same performance for a few tens of
milliwatts for low-bandwidth metrics / position tracking, but if you can
afford battery and equipment and antenna weight, obviously you'll have
loads more bandwidth to play with.
R Kirk said:
> Really, it is just location tracking despite the many other uses that
> Bob has thought of that aren't really used
My city+area certainly has quite a few extra things "put on the map"
that aren't "tracking" as such - local repeaters are an obvious one, but
days/times of nets, locations of club meetings and hamfests (well, not
in 2020, but, y'know), hospitals, etc, plus of course the marathon route
and other info mentioned above.
> I loved it [...]
Some of us still love it :-)
> [...] but its time has passed. Look at the traffic volume trend on
> this group, for instance.
Well... sure... Or how about you look at ACTUAL USAGE of the protocol,
as recorded on the APRS-IS backbone (bytes AFTER xz compression, 12 mo
per year):
2016: 990876 950440 1074916 1082188 1158920 1070900 1107124
1106744 1101384 1117568 1100308 1133752
2017: 1135448 1099604 1244516 1297956 1323328 1258668 1296148
1317384 1280776 1358960 1308428 1357144
2018: 1371440 1272112 1429884 1496916 1508972 1461172 1517968
1599108 1556256 1644676 1592424 1682396
2019: 1749404 1613256 1850576 1799320 1896356 1842444 1889712
1897260 1851056 1956880 1803724 1929232
2020: 2004992 1923664 2059592 2069212 2243348 2157612 2300872
2298624 2339300 2360517(*)
(*) 2020-10 estimated based on 1751352 bytes(.xz) for 23/31 days of data
Looks like that has steadily climbed, month after month, year after
year, and seems to be showing no sign of slowing down, not even
particularly impacted by COVID. "time has passed" you say? :-D
Nick VA3NNW
--
"Nosey" Nick Waterman, VA3NNW/G7RZQ, K2 #5209.
use Std::Disclaimer; sig at noseynick.net
Earth was interesting, and worth the money I paid for it.
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