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<div class="moz-cite-prefix">Ev Tupis via aprssig wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:1304600497.2629876.1603452751354@mail.yahoo.com">
<div class="ydpae907400yahoo-style-wrap"
style="font-family:Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, Arial,
sans-serif;font-size:16px;">
<div dir="ltr" data-setdir="false">APRS is the IoT of amateur
radio</div>
</div>
</blockquote>
<p>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</p>
<p>(*) ... 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?</p>
<p>And I KNOW some of you are sending things like
solar/battery/water/septic level monitoring from their remote
off-grid cottages :-)<br>
</p>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:1304600497.2629876.1603452751354@mail.yahoo.com">
<div class="ydpae907400yahoo-style-wrap"
style="font-family:Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, Arial,
sans-serif;font-size:16px;"><span>... general hobbyists to
transport small data packets of all types (let your
imagination run) from geographically separated
locations...many without Internet service.<br>
</span></div>
</blockquote>
<p>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.<br>
</p>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:1304600497.2629876.1603452751354@mail.yahoo.com">
<div class="ydpae907400yahoo-style-wrap"
style="font-family:Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, Arial,
sans-serif;font-size:16px;">
<div dir="ltr" data-setdir="false">...public service and
emergency communication groups like RACES and ARES to add
situational awareness data to first responders of all types;</div>
</div>
</blockquote>
<p>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.<br>
</p>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:1304600497.2629876.1603452751354@mail.yahoo.com">
<div class="ydpae907400yahoo-style-wrap"
style="font-family:Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, Arial,
sans-serif;font-size:16px;">
<div dir="ltr" data-setdir="false">...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.</div>
</div>
</blockquote>
<p>Yup, or indeed things like the high altitude problem above. :-)</p>
<p>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).</p>
<p>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.<br>
</p>
<p>R Kirk said:<br>
</p>
<p>
<blockquote type="cite"><span style="font-style: italic;
font-weight: bold;">Really, it is just location tracking
despite the many other uses that Bob has thought of that
aren't really used</span></blockquote>
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.</p>
<p>
<blockquote type="cite">
<span style="color: black; font-family: arial, helvetica;
font-size: 10pt; font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">I
loved it [...]<br>
</span></blockquote>
Some of us still love it :-)<br>
<blockquote type="cite"><span style="color: black; font-family:
arial, helvetica; font-size: 10pt; font-style: italic;
font-weight: bold;">[...] but its time has passed. Look at the
traffic volume trend on this group, for instance.</span></blockquote>
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):</p>
<p>2016: 990876 950440 1074916 1082188 1158920 1070900
1107124 1106744 1101384 1117568 1100308 1133752<br>
2017: 1135448 1099604 1244516 1297956 1323328 1258668
1296148 1317384 1280776 1358960 1308428 1357144<br>
2018: 1371440 1272112 1429884 1496916 1508972 1461172
1517968 1599108 1556256 1644676 1592424 1682396<br>
2019: 1749404 1613256 1850576 1799320 1896356 1842444
1889712 1897260 1851056 1956880 1803724 1929232<br>
2020: 2004992 1923664 2059592 2069212 2243348 2157612
2300872 2298624 2339300 2360517(*)<br>
(*) 2020-10 estimated based on 1751352 bytes(.xz) for 23/31 days
of data<br>
</p>
<p>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</p>
<p>Nick VA3NNW<br>
</p>
<pre class="moz-signature" cols="72">--
"Nosey" Nick Waterman, VA3NNW/G7RZQ, K2 #5209.
use Std::Disclaimer; <a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:sig@noseynick.net">sig@noseynick.net</a>
Earth was interesting, and worth the money I paid for it.
</pre>
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