[OZAPRS] Melbourne APRS Digipeater Status
Ray Wells
vk2tv at exemail.com.au
Fri Mar 25 15:05:34 EST 2011
Tony/All,
I've been in this hobby long enough (licenced 42 years) to have seen the
masses p'd off on many occasions by the decisions of Tony's "secret
seven" and I'm sure I'll see it happen again, provided my number in the
lottery of life isn't drawn out too soon.
I see regulation within the hobby by way of gentleman's agreement as
being essential. Unfortunately, it's so often not the gentlemen (and
ladies) who get to formulate those in-hobby rules; it is, as Tony
suggests, a secret seven or eight or four - pick your own number - who
then jump on mere mortals for doing the wrong thing. I know that many of
those individuals have contributed a lot to the hobby, heck, I'm one of
them, but that doesn't bestow any special rights to tell others what to do.
If we are going to have agreements for APRS, as we must, all users must
be party to the development of such agreements and, state based
agreements need to be avoided. APRS must surely have created something
of an achievement in Australia with our unanimous agreement on a 2m
frequency for the entire country. Let that "nation first attitude" flow
on to the guidelines and recommendations of best practices for APRS.
Agreement(s) must be published in an easy to understand format to cater
for the lowest denominator within the hobby. The published document must
be easy to find (on the web) and available in printed format and, MUST
be kept current.
I invite anyone to search for SSID usage to see what I mean about easy
to find. And even when you do find the "right" document you'll find that
it is, after all, a recommendation and not binding. For example, most of
Oz seems to use the SSID of -1 for APRS digis yet, VK4 have chosen -3.
Let's agree on national standards so everyone knows what to expect, even
when they cross a state border.
Tony mentioned Igates and asks who approves them and, that's a valid
question. Who does one ask if they feel the need to establish an Igate?
I didn't ask anybody. Being that back then, I was over 300km from the
nearest APRS activity, I set up an Igate and a local 2m port (my local
BBS port of 144.900) to try to raise some local interest in APRS. When I
added 30m to the APRS system, again, I asked nobody. I saw a gaping hole
between Sydney and Brisbane and, seeing that I'm halfway between those
cities, my decision made perfect sense. My decision re 30m seems
justified given the traffic I have gated. I wonder what the answer would
have been had I been able to ask a committee? Historically I've seen
repeater applications refused or seriously delayed simply because of the
particular name on the application form. When I added ISS rx only to my
station I again didn't ask, the same logic of a huge hole existing
between satgates being applied yet again.
Having said all that, we do need national coordination with peer input.
I can't remember how UIView works with regard to Igate to RF traffic
because I haven't used UIView in years. I seem to recall there's an ini
file where it's set up. In Xastir, local traffic is automatically gated
to RF, provided the station config allows Internet to RF. Non-local
traffic must be added to a config file (nws-stations.txt) in the format
of callsign or object name to be fed to RF. I don't feed to 30m. Even
though my range on the T2 server is specified as 4000km, only traffic
I've declared in the "to RF" file goes onto RF and then only on those RF
ports I've enabled for this. I've chosen that high value so I can look
at weather events anywhere in Oz/PNG/ZL, as the need arises. Xastir
currently reports 893 stations/objects in that range.
Why did packet die? As sysop of a BBS (6 radio ports plus axudp links)
for near 14 years I often pondered that question and my conclusions are;
1. packet police - but only to a very small extent
2. the introduction of BBS's in most areas placed heavy traffic on the
inadequate backbone network which resulted in end users no longer being
able to conduct keyboard chats over those networks so, they lost
interest in a big way. More internet connectivity in the early 90's
might have helped here. I know it's not RF but in this state, radio
clubs being forced by the state government to pay commercial rent at
government owned sites meant the death of many RF links. A major Rose
network hub in Newcastle was one such site and its closure isolated all
of the north of the state from Sydney.
3. people simply lost interest and that will also happen with APRS as
people get sick of looking at a map with the same callsigns on it every
day. Yes, I know APRS can be much more than stations on a map but is
that how the majority see it? I suspect not.
4. Packet radio was touted as a must have mode back in the early 80's.
Many of you have heard the hype - keyboard to keyboard contacts over
hundreds of kilometres through multiple digis, error-free transfer of
files, etc, etc. In reality, a contact via just one digi can be
frustrating enough. Only the really adventurous tried using multiple
digis. As for file transfers, dream on.
5. The NSW, at least, network development usually lagged behind the
increase in end user numbers to the point where end users just gave
packet away as a bad joke. The rivalry between incompatible networking
protocols like Rose/Netrom/TCPIP also did little to keep users involved.
It was frustrating to say the least to try to perform a long distance
connection over competing network protocols, no matter how "easy" it was
supposed to be. The network design itself (again, in northern NSW) left
lots to be desired with all Rose nodes being linked by half-duplex at
1k2 and, all on the same frequency of 440.050. We really did do it all
wrong and packet didn't stand a chance of maintaining popularity.
6. At the end of the day packet had simply run its race as operators
decided it wasn't for them. That's disappointing because packet still
has the potential to be a useful tool for AR. Will APRS suffer the same
fate?
Tony, I don't have a forelock (I'd be happy if I had hair) and if I
bowed I'd find it difficult to straighten up again.
Ray vk2tv
On 25/03/11 09:42, Tony King wrote:
> Hi All,
> Further to my previous irritated rant,
>
> Being retired and somewhat prone to spending more time in the shack than
> is good for me, I get to see what is happening on the aprs.fi screen a
> fair bit .
>
> What I have noticed is the almost complete lack of mobile traffic around
> Melbourne. In the course of 24hrs their appears to be not more than
> around an average of 10-15 mobile stations recorded. Most of these are
> regulars going to and from work and are so regular that if they didn't
> appear I feel like I should ring them up to see they are OK. To me this
> doesn't conflict with my own observations of lots of periods of quiet on
> the 2m frequency. The frequency can't be said to be anywhere near
> overloaded at the moment. In fact compared to 2 years ago the traffic
> appears to be negligible.
>
> Looking at the stations connected to the T2 servers shows that most of
> the VK stations have their filters set for thousands of km. I don't know
> if they are putting these to air but it did strike me as as pretty
> excessive amount of data. I reckoned I was a bit cheeky in setting mine
> to 600km but I wanted to watch a mate who is travelling around vk3 and a
> circle of that diameter based on my station just covered it.. I never
> did work out how to limit the transmissions on my RF (using uiview) to
> just 50km whilst receiving data from 600km from the T2 servers. Can it
> be done?
>
> Like all good amateurs I used the transmission limiting function built
> into UIView to limit the number of transmissions to RF sent per minute
> so I don't feel my station was causing any grief nor would it cause any
> grief by remaining on air as a digi/igate. There are certainly a
> significant number of areas ranging from Christmas Hills to areas of the
> Yarra Valley that are not covered by the various "officially sanctioned"
> repeaters that it services. My fill in function will not be needed with
> the provision of the Yarra Valley Amateur Radio Group fill in digi soon
> to be on Briarties Hill. I might add this is thanks to the provision of
> a couple of cavity filters from a list member. Looking at aprs.fi I can
> see that my station is servicing areas right on the slopes of Mt
> Dandeniong where the "officially sanctioned" repeater is obviously shaded.
>
> <snip> I think if APRS was not around maybe packet may have died ;-)
>
> As a true packet BBS sysop (I use the term /true/ just to differentiate
> from APRS) it is my be belief that true packet is already dead. What we
> are seeing are the last dying twitches of what has been, and still could
> be, a valuable amateur resource, but it was made less than a friendly
> usable service by the afore mentioned packet police. All you see on
> packet now is an endless repeat of low grade "tech topics" and 3 or 4
> widely scattered stations flaming each other at 1200bps. If it wasn't
> for my last three users I would chuck it in as a BBS sysop.
>
> My personal opinion is that the packet demise was caused by excessive
> "policing" by organisations that felt the dire need to over regulate the
> operation of the system. All it really did was stifle the technical
> innovation and user interest that would have moved the packet system
> into the 21st century.. .Let's hope we are not seeing the same thing
> happening to APRS. The current packet replacement, the BPQ BBS system,
> is a step in the right innovation direction but it has become an
> internet service not a ham radio service.
>
> I don't think anyone wants to see chaos on the APRS frequencies but
> perhaps a little bit of reasoned thought and coercion rather than
> "orders" might work better. Even a bit of open discussion on this forum
> rather than the operation of a secret committee behind closed doors
> would help. Who appointed the igates, and what are the technical reasons
> for the selection are a couple of questions that spring to mind. Reading
> the regs I didn't find anything that said I must blindly operate my
> station in accordance with instructions from the secret seven.
>
> Heaven forbid, perhaps we might have a bit of technical and policy
> information and reasoning disseminated on here so that people know what
> is happening in the APRS halls of power.
>
> There are areas my system services in the Yarra Valley that are not, and
> cannot be, serviced by the current repeater system. I will become
> redundant as a digi for this purpose with the provision of the Briarties
> Hill Digi and will then gracefully retire taking all applause and
> acclaim for my efforts off stage, and not "on air", in my usual modest
> fashion.
>
> Regards Tony VK3API
> your humble serf
> touching forelock
> with left hand
> and bowing deeply:-))
>
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