[aprssig] APRS tocalls.txt - practical steps

[John Zaruba]

I must admit, the news of Bob’s death brought me back to this list. While not a developer, I consider myself an APRS “evangelist” and started with a disk I bought from Bob around 1987 or ‘88. Was also lucky enough to meet him several times in person and one time I was camping in Lewes,DE when Bob was staying in Rehoboth and talked with him every night on 2m simplex for several hours. I’m sure his wife wasn’t happy about it, mine certainly wasn’t, but what an education it was!
In response to Steve’s point, yes an umbrella group is highly desirable but not just for protocol maintenance but also end-user education (best practices). Case in point, I just updated a Raspberry Pi running APRX and have been tailing the RF log file watching all the various beacons, and there is a lot of useless stuff being beaconed. I see dozens of DV hotspots advertising their positions, to what purpose? I can’t send them a message and with milliwatt transmitters I’m not going to be able to come up on their frequency and start a rag chew unless I’m right on top of them. The big lesson I got from Bob was the “philosophy” of APRS; two way, real time communications. When driving around I can’t recall the last time I heard a packet burst from another voice alert enabled station. There are thousands of APRS capable radios deployed, only a small percentage have APRS configured which is a shame. OK, climbing down from my soap box…
I’ll combine questions two and three here, again with the understanding I’m not a developer. I appreciate Hessu’s willingness to step up and set up the GitHub infrastructure but also agree with Steve’s point about waiting some reasonable period of time before “going live”.
73,
John K2ZA

> How do other APRS users feel? We really need to make this more of a discussion. One of the concerns the most promising candidate expressed privately is the apathy on the list so far. There are hundreds of people on this list, and only a few have said anything. So this is the first chance for public comment about a specific question. If you have an interest in APRS speak now or forever share the blame (or credit) for what happens!
> 
> 
> 1. Do you think an APRS protocol group or organization of some sort is a good idea?
> 
> 2. Should Hessu start new infrastructure to handle IDs now?
> 
> 3. If not is three months an appropriate length of time to wait to see if a group can form? Suggest another if you wish.
> 
> 
> Steve K4HG


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