[aprssig] APRS-IS and metadata

[Borja Marcos]

> On 18 Aug 2023, at 00:26, Scott Miller <scott at opentrac.org> wrote:
> 
> On 8/17/2023 2:52 PM, Bob Poortinga wrote:
>> Nothing prevents you from using the free text comment section of an APRS position report, object, or status packet for your own needs. Create a software parsable format that is distinct (e.g. starting the comment with "&&") and stuff your meta data there.
> Please no! Let's stop doing that without some planning and coordination. There are so many (sometimes incompatible) little extensions out there. I'm guilty of introducing a number of them myself.
> 
> I'm experiencing that all again with EchoLink right now, having to capture packets and pick them apart and figure out that to this client, this field means this but only if this other field is zero, but to another client that's something else, unless maybe it saw the other end use a field differently and then it changes...

Exactly. If you leave that to chaos it will be useless. Let the elements in the chain such as iGates add metadata (I insist, not altering packets!) with 
valuable context information.


73,




Borja / EA2EKH