[OZAPRS] F Calls

Darryl Smith Darryl at radio-active.net.au
Tue Apr 29 07:01:05 EST 2008


People 

I don't want to inflame the situation any further. Having said that there
are a couple of things that have not been highlighted in this discussion to
date. Basically an F call operating APRS is about 2% as bad as if they did
not have a license. And also the person has not been identifying themselves
correctly, as defined by the ACA/ACMA.

The way I understand it is that there are a couple of issues :-

	* A person is operating outside the conditions of their licensed.
This is (from memory) about 1/50th as serious as operating without a
license, based on the Radio Communications Act Penalties. From memory the
penalties are 10 Units for operating outside the conditions, and 500 units
for operating without a license.

	* The person who was operating outside the conditions of their
license was not properly identifying themselves. 

I think that there are enough things that have not been highlighted about
the second point for some discussion.

At the protocol level, under AX25, there are two components to packets being
transmitted. They are the CALLSIGN, which is about the first 7 Characters
(depending on the version of AX25), and then the SSID, a number from 0x00 to
0x0F (0 -> 15).

In the case of a person operating as 'VK2-4', the person has not been
identifying themselves correctly. He is identifying himself as VK2, not
VK2FOUR according to the protocol. The purpose of the SSID is to allow many
instances of a single callsign to be on air without causing logical
confusion. 

It could be argued that identifying as 'VK2-4' does provide a proper
identification. The argument against this is the precedent from the year
2000. In this case, the WIA was issued the Callsign VK2OOO, for VK2 followed
by three of the letters O. The advice from the ACA was that this should
never be referred to as 'VK 2000', but 'VK2 OH OH OH', as identifying as 'VK
2000' was not seen as a proper identification of the station.

---

The 'F' call system has been a success, as has the 'Codeless Novice'
H-calls, and the Codeless Full call license (Limited Calls). People who are
unhappy with the way that the WIA or ACMA are doing things should put their
money with their mouth is. They can

	* Join the WIA - There annual convention is in Broken Hill on May
24/5
	* Become an office holder of the WIA
	* Get a job with the ACMA
	* Set up an alternative to the WIA, and start lobbying the ACMA.
	* Set up a political party promising to change Ham Radio rules, and
rationalize the ACMA


Darryl

-----Original Message-----
From: ozaprs-bounces at aprs.net.au [mailto:ozaprs-bounces at aprs.net.au] On
Behalf Of Kim Stevens
Sent: Tuesday, 29 April 2008 12:19 AM
To: 'Australian APRS Users'
Subject: RE: [OZAPRS] F Calls

Hi Chris,

I support Tim on this, and if you are interested in APRS which you
obviously are, I would support your continued reception of the
information from this forum. 
We have all spent time and effort appropriate to the circumstances in
place at the time for licensing. 
What I don't agree with is taking cheap shots in general as it never
achieves anything but bad feelings.
Just enjoy the hobby we all share, and when your ready have a go at
upgrading, I look forward to a contact on APRS. In the mean time it'll
just have to be a voice contact... echolink may have to do!!

73 Kim 

Kim Stevens VK2ASY
-----Original Message-----
From: ozaprs-bounces at aprs.net.au [mailto:ozaprs-bounces at aprs.net.au] On
Behalf Of Chris Megaw
Sent: Monday, 28 April 2008 8:38 PM
To: ozaprs at aprs.net.au
Subject: [OZAPRS] F Calls

Just to answer Andrew.... No they dont come in chip packets yet..
I hope all you guys who just HAD to study for your licence dont feel to
bad, really I don't....
I just wonder how the other F calls feel reading your tripe while trying
to glean some information from the thread. One person does not represent
the whole F call community. 
I only hope YOU Andrew are not representative of the APRS community.

By the way unsubscribe me.

Cheers
vk4Fccc

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