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ZL3AI > APRDIG 11.09.03 11:09l 228 Lines 10252 Bytes #999 (0) @ WW
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From: ZL3AI@ZL3VML.#80.NZL.OC
To : APRDIG@WW
Subject: RE: Homeport
From: David VanHorn <dvanhorn@cedar.net>
Date: Mon, 08 Sep 2003 14:33:03 -0500
X-Message-Number: 14
At 03:11 PM 9/8/2003 -0400, Richard Garcia wrote:
>The idea sounds great but how about those who run trackers ? Tracker
>meaning no laptop, just a TNC and Radio connected to the GPS.
how about a device that plugs onto the tnc, and interprets a packet from
the local digi, that suggests local settings.
i've always maintained that one set of settings should be workable
nationwide, but the root of that logic is as you state, a tracker user /or
really any user/ can't be fiddling settings all the time.. if we can make
it automatic, then the problem goes away.
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Subject: RE: Homeport
From: Mark Earle <wa2mct@mearle.com>
Date: Mon, 08 Sep 2003 14:40:38 -0500
X-Message-Number: 15
Part of this debate is what is "local". To many of us who use wide area
linked repeaters, local may indeed be several hundred miles. I can set a
path of wide-3 and be visible for about 200 miles. This is my objective, to
be seen that far via RF.
Further, Local and Tactical may mean much greater distances than some are
used to. For instance, an imcoming hurricane. It may be desirable in that
circumstance to consider 2-400 miles of coastline as one local area;
furhter include inland EOC facilities and cities which will support the
affected coastal towns.
) ) de WA2MCT Mark
( (
) ) You will be assimilated... oooh, coffee!!
_|****| http://www.findu.com/cgi-bin/find.cgi?wa2mct-8 Home
( | | http://www.findu.com/cgi-bin/find.cgi?wa2mct-9 Mobile
`|____| wa2mct@mearle.com wa2mct@juno.com www.mearle.com/mark
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Subject: Re: Homeport
From: Bob Bruninga <bruninga@usna.edu>
Date: Mon, 8 Sep 2003 16:21:20 -0400 (EDT)
X-Message-Number: 16
On Mon, 8 Sep 2003, Spider wrote:
>Your idea Bob is likely a good one, but it's putting the cart before the
>horse, IMHO....
>So, define what LOCAL is and fix that first....Please! Is LOCAL a County?
>Is LOCAL a STATE? Is Local the magic number of 40 with at least 10 of them
>being digi's?
Good question, and fortunately, it is very easy to answer universally.
"Local" is that RF area that covers the 50 nearest APRS users. Any
further and the channel is saturated and data is being lost. Sure, the
map looks pretty, but it is not going to be able to be used reliably
beyond that point.
In central LA, that radius is 15 miles or so. Here in Maryland, it is
about 25 miles. In Wyoming, it might be over 100 miles radius.
>Sorry for being a tad bit negative, but I do not see this fixing much and
>possibly just adding to the obvious confusion that is out there now.
No problem. As you note, the capability already exists and many people
already use it. I just wanted to help the IGate owners by not having to
update their local users list manually and defining a way to do it
automatically.
de WB4APR, Bob
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Subject: RE: Homeport
From: "Christensen, Eric" <CHRISTENSENE@MAIL.ECU.EDU>
Date: Mon, 8 Sep 2003 16:20:10 -0400
X-Message-Number: 17
Automatic would be great except I KNOW there would be a few out there that
didn't know what they were doing and would end up having everyone change
over to WIDE7-7,TRACE7-7,RELAY.
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Subject: Re: Homeport
From: "Wes Johnston" <wes@johnston.net>
Date: Mon, 8 Sep 2003 16:51:26 -0400
X-Message-Number: 18
Bob, this sounds similar to something I suggested a few weeks ago. Then,
the idea was to add the airport designator of your town AFTER the standard
RELAY,WIDE path elements. So if I wanted to send a packet to my home town
from anywhere in the world, I could make my mobile station's path RELAY,
WIDE, SMS (sms is my air port designator). The local IGATE in my area
would be programmed to respond to any mention of SMS in the path and would
gate those packets out to RF. I even started to modify the xastir source
code to do this. It's been hard coded at this point for testing. It would
also be possible to use a path such as RELAY, WIDE, SMS, ATL, BWI and have
my packets pop out in Sumter SC, Atlanta, and Baltimore.
The truely fantastic 2nd stage of this concept is what I'd call a
subscription. My d700 sends a "subscription" message in every other or
every 3rd posit beacon. The nearest IGATE to me hears this request (for
example, to keep up with my dad, kr4ft, I'd send ?kr4ft? in my status
text), it permits any packets from kr4ft out onto RF for the next 30
minutes. After 30 minutes the subscription lapses and the IGATE stops
sending the requested data. This would allow me to keep up with my dad in
my home town as I travel... in other words, his position reports would
"follow" me around.
Here's another idea... What if we decided that a worst case busy as heck
network would allow mobiles to beacon every 5 minutes. Well, I'd program
my d700 to beacon every 5 minutes. If we had a "smart digi" in the area,
it would track when/which mobile stations were sending when and which fixed
stations were sending when... The digi would "know" that it could expect to
hear a fixed station at 5:30 after the top of the hour. When it predicted
that there would be an empty slot, it would send a query on air to any
participating mobiles: ?kd4rdb? for example, and my station would beacon a
packet. In this way, the digi could fill empty time on the network as
usage permitted and when the band got busy, everyone's mobiles would drop
back to a worst case of TXing every 5 minutes. When I was out of range of
a smart digi, my station would beacon every 5 minutes.
Wes
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Subject: Re: Homeport
From: "AE5PL Lists" <HamLists@ametx.com>
Date: Mon, 8 Sep 2003 16:18:27 -0500
X-Message-Number: 19
The problem with using airport codes is 1. not everyplace has an airport
(rural America and the rest of the world), 2. not everyone knows what
the local airport code may be (don't forget to prefix all alpha codes in
the US with a K) 3. there are areas where there are multiple airports in
coverage by different IGates (in the Dallas-Ft Worth area, would we use
DFW for all IGates? Or non-commercial airport codes for more localized
coverage). Something similar was attempted back in the 80's and early
90's on connected packet and the complexity ended up making it unusable
for most operators. We are using lat/lon reporting in APRS and the
modifications I proposed would eliminate the requirement to know airport
codes, who "local" IGates are, etc.
For those with trackers, setting a homeport would be as easy as
reconfiguring their home software to send the home message with their
tracker callsign as the from call and then returning their home software
to the normal call-SSID combo.
Your idea of a subscription is also a good one. One thing that all of
these depend on is that all IGates be connected to full feeds or that
the IGates automatically update their server filter settings to pass the
specified callsign. With the growth in APRS, the former is becoming
more and more difficult due to bandwidth restrictions, both to/from the
Internet and in the IGate software itself. Implementing the latter is
doable but line length may become an issue for more populated areas,
though probably not an issue.
Just some food for thought.
73,
Pete Loveall AE5PL
pete@ae5pl.net
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Subject: Re: Homeport
From: "Wes Johnston" <wes@johnston.net>
Date: Mon, 8 Sep 2003 17:39:43 -0400
X-Message-Number: 20
>The problem with using airport codes is 1. not everyplace has an airport
>(rural America and the rest of the world), 2. not everyone knows what
>the local airport code may be (don't forget to prefix all alpha codes in
I just don't know how else to suggest a starting point for naming IGATEs.
One thing is for sure... if you are trying to get packets back home, you'll
know the IGATE callsign/designator for "home base". However, we could use
FIPS codes.... now there's a thought (for the usa at least.... That would
get my packet into my county.
>coverage by different IGates (in the Dallas-Ft Worth area, would we use
>DFW for all IGates? Or non-commercial airport codes for more localized
Xastir for example, won't IGATE something out if another IGATE has beaten it
to the punch. So, it would be OK to have more than one IGATE in an area
with the same designator.
>For those with trackers, setting a homeport would be as easy as
>reconfiguring their home software to send the home message with their
>tracker callsign as the from call and then returning their home software
>to the normal call-SSID combo.
True, and that covers ammo can trackers. I'm not too fond of the idea of a
start/ end time which Bob suggested.... it needs to be some default length
of time (like 2 days or so) and the messages need to be sent perodically....
what if you are 4 hours into a weekend trip and your local IGATE reboots?
unless the messages are repeated periodically, or in each packet (my
suggestion with PATH seeded elements), then you'd be screwed for the
remainder of your trip. Of course your idea of programming a home station
to send the messages would work... provided you remembered to program the
home station to do it... (I'm being a little cynical - my home station is
"advertising" 3 local repeaters on aprs as we speak, so setting up the home
station to beacon an IGATE request for your ammo can wouldnt really be a
problem.
>Your idea of a subscription is also a good one. One thing that all of
>these depend on is that all IGates be connected to full feeds or that
>the IGates automatically update their server filter settings to pass the
>specified callsign. With the growth in APRS, the former is becoming
Good point... posits from my friends in germany wouldn't get thru the
javafilters... bummer.
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