[aprssig] Army/Navy/AF MARS

[Robert Bruninga]

In the  past, I have tried to find a way to involve APRS
in the Army/Navy/AF MARS  volunteer groups so that 
we can use APRS to facilitate those volunteer efforts.
I think I now have a workable solution... If you are a 
MARS member, active or inactive, please send me a 
note OFF SIG... thanks.

In the past, there were several problems with implementing
APRS in support of MARS:
  * Lack of critical mass to build a MARS only APRS system
  * Lack of Frequencies
  * Lack of a mission or purpose
  * Cross service ID issues (Amateur-X-MARS)

But as MARS moves more into emergency comms in 
support of home land security, the mission is becoming
better defined and so I think it is time to look at this again.

OBJECTIVE:
I want to be able to see a MAP of MARS assets and
stations, their movement and activity.  But since many
of the individual HAMS we see every day on APRS are 
also volunteers in the MARS organizations, all we need
is a way to identify them.

Previously, I had suggested that we encourage MARS members 
to add something like NMARS or AMARS to their Position 
Comment text so that we could see who are the MARS people
on our APRS maps.  But mingling amateur calls and MARS calls 
is not a good idea...

SO, TODAY's idea is to simply build an off-line cross reference
file that MARS members can use that will take the existing
APRS map and then cross reference and on demand, only
display LOCALLY on that PC, the MARS assets...

Soo, I need to build a list to seed this idea and
also to see if there are enough APRS MARS members
to make the effort worthwhile...

de WB4APR, Bob