[aprssig] Open Source/Commercial Use acceptable APRS Alternative?

[wa7skg]

While I, too, have heard that Bob said it was prohibited to use the APRS 
protocol commercially, I do know it was done. There was a maintenance 
business in McAllen, TX that had a business frequency for dispatching 
his service vehicles. He got a bunch of business band walkie-talkies, 
some Kantronics TNCs, and small GPS receivers, put them in locked boxes 
and installed them in all his vehicles. He had a big monitor in his 
office showing where all his trucks were. Most of his people did not 
know these devices were in there, but found out when they were not where 
they said they were and were invited to seek opportunities elsewhere.

Not APRS, but I was in Tucson for a while in 1995 when they had a big 
golf tournament. I discovered packet signals on a UHF commercial 
frequency and hooked my scanner up to my MFJ TNC. They had laptops, TNCs 
and handheld radios at each tee and hole and were reporting all the 
player information to Golf Central via packet radio. No callsigns, just 
identifiers, TEE-1, HOLE-1, TEE-7, HOLE-9, etc. They passed players 
numbers (no names), tee time, number of shots, etc. Pretty interesting 
stuff.

Michael WA7SKG



John Langner WB2OSZ wrote on 8/7/23 11:29 AM:
> 
> I haven't seen anything that would prohibit the use of the APRS protocol for
> commercial use.
> The issue would be using the Amateur Radio frequencies.
> 
> What, exactly, is the use case?
> Would hams be present for the event?
> We've put APRS trackers on vehicles in town parades so everyone can track
> their progress.
> 
> You mentioned that LoRa is already being used.
> QEX July/August 2023 describes an implementation of APRS for the LoRa TTGO.
> https://github.com/lora-aprs
> 
> 73,
> John WB2OSZ
>