[OZAPRS] Beacons - How often ....?

[Terry Neumann]

G'day all,

An interesting discussion with good points made by all.

I tend to agree with the sentiments expressed by Ron (below).  This simply
isn't an issue at present in Australia.  It's true that 30 seconds is a
far too often, but not everyone who gets into APRS for the first time is
as up to speed on both the programs, the mode, and the etiquette as we
hope we are.  

Allow me to put another consideration.  I suggested once before, and I now
do so again, that the more activity we have on the (HF)APRS frequencies
(within reason) the better.  Like Bob, I listen to the frequency with ears
as well as tnc.  I hear quite a lot of presumably non amateur data traffic
on and close to the 30 metre APRS frequency, and occasional non amateur
voice traffic in the bandwidth we are interested in.  If "our" frequency
is reasonably busy and occupied, we have a better chance of retaining for
that point in the future when we really do need to ask for beacon
intervals to be opened out.

Regarding Bob's concerns ..... It's true that 30 metres is a world wide
band and we need to be thinking of friends over the horizon.  However my
real concern is not so much what we might (in theory) be doing to APRS in
other parts of the globe, for there appears to be little evidence to date
that it's happening, but how the spectrum hungry "operate anywhere"
thousands to the north west of Australia might view a fairly quiet
allocation on "their" part of the spectrum - i.e. anywhere close to where
they already are.    

In Australia we have pretty well lost 10 metres to amateur DX operation,
simply because the pirates in SE Asia and elsewhere found it to be quiet
during sunspot minima.   When the band did open up for us at the start of
the last cycle, they are were (and still are) in their thousands.   I'm
very angry about that.  Ten metres gave me some of my best and most
exciting operating conditions in the late 70's and early 80's.   It's now
virtually useless.    

Of course this is only partially relevant for 10 Mhz.  Or is it? Just
listen to 10.000 Mhz at the right time to see what can happen.   Yes, I
know it's the WWV frequency but listen in the early evening Australian
times.  

The real threat to Amateur Radio in the future will not be overcrowding
from amateur signals. It will come from our own apathy and the total lack
of enforcement of agreed international band plans by governments in some
countries quite close to our shores.   

Me? I'm sticking to beaconing once every hour.  In compressed format.   I
hope that's not toooooo often :-)

A good discussion.  We are all learning.  

FWIW
73
Terry 








>Message: 5
>Date: Wed,  7 Jul 2004 16:10:13 +1000
>From: rsmitj at tpg.com.au
>Subject: Re: [OZAPRS] HF  MOBILE beaconing, food for thought.
>To: bbeamish at bigpond.net.au, ozaprs at marconi.ics.mq.edu.au,	Brian
>	Beamish <bbeamish at bigpond.net.au>
>Cc: OZAPRS <ozaprs at marconi.ics.mq.edu.au>
>Message-ID: <1089180613.40eb93c585b61 at postoffice.tpg.com.au>
>Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
>
>Hi Brian and all,
>I think Brian is being reasonable.
>We simply monitor the situation and as traffic increases we increase the
intervals.
>Cheers
>Ron


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