[OZAPRS] OZAPRS Digest, Vol 8, Issue 25

[Tony Hunt]

Sure Dave .. Its an opportunity to learn.. But when you have no experience 
with APRS does it make sense to make the default values painful and the 
sense of the configuration somewhat difficult. Thats what is consistantly 
happening now for years. As devices like Tiny Trakers and Open Trackers get 
developed they get more and more complex. It just makes work for sysops 
harder . I for one dont want to be a packet policman so I let it ride for a 
while as the newbies learn before I say something.

One of the first things the newbies tend to get on APRS is a TinyTrak or 
similar as they are a cheap addition to an existing mobile installation and 
something you can have as a club construction project. So why make it an 
ambigious excercise ? Most just want something to work before they start to 
learn the intracasies of the whole APRS system and your gear. Then they get 
the old diehards like me winging and on their back about their settings. It 
happens often. Trying to actually contact them via phone or email isnt 
allways easy either.
Its not a matter of sysops getting them straightened out and back in their 
box behaving themselves but a matter of owing it to those fellow amateurs 
who need guidance. The number of newbies Ive contacted and explained things 
to over the past few years I cant count. If someone had not bothered then I 
suspect raferties rules would ensue and APRS on 2m in this part of the world 
would be as bad as it became in the US.

Lets face it if you have never driven a car before the manufacturer does not 
care. So would you just get into the car and drive it out on the road and 
after hitting a few other cars and things just get out and say "well I was 
taking the opportunity to learn" . It only goes so far with that line of 
thinking and theres no wisdom in sitting back and letting it happen to 
somone else time and again.

Its time we made some of these things a bit clearer to the folks who produce 
these devices and like we have been tyring on web pages for those who seem 
to be left guessing their way through the configs.

Tony Hunt VK5AH   wavetel at internode.on.net


----- Original Message ----- 
> Message: 4
> Date: Wed, 24 Mar 2010 09:13:56 +1100 (EST)
> From: Dave Horsfall <dave at horsfall.org>
> Subject: Re: [OZAPRS] OZAPRS Digest, Vol 8, Issue 24
> To: Australian APRS Users <ozaprs at aprs.net.au>
> Message-ID: <Pine.BSI.4.64.1003240909530.4753 at dave.horsfall.org>
> Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII
>
> On Wed, 24 Mar 2010, Tony Hunt wrote:
>
>> I cant help but find the configs for these Tiny trackers are really
>> unhelpful when they start using units like Knots. Miles an hour is bad
>> enough when most of the world is metric but knots means little to most
>> of us.
>
> Well, think of it as an opportunity to learn...
>
> -- Dave