[aprssig] IGate wildcards/Telpac data

[Steve Dimse]

On 2/15/05 at 10:46 AM AE5PL Lists <HamLists at ametx.com> sent:

>> Should we start prefixing weather stations with WX- , 
>> balloons with BA- , Digi's with DI- , etc. ?  Of course not.  
>
>You could and it wouldn't hurt a thing (other than findu).  Don't get
>hung up on the AX.25 spec when it comes to APRS-IS.  We do not use AX.25
>on APRS-IS.  We use text/binary strings that loosely follow the TNC-2
>monitor mode format.  As Bob points out, that has always been assumed to
>mean ANY 9 characters for a callsign-SSID.
>
Actually, Bob did not say that. He said it must be three to nine characters, if
a dash occurs, it must be in the second or third position from the end, in other
words the proposed WL-K4HG would not be legal.
 
Bob is more lenient than I, but we both agree that the WL- proposal is not
within the acceptible range. The spec is of no value, as it specifically applies
only to the RF side, where AX25 limits the possibilities more.

As the link I gave earlier to a message posted nearly 7 years ago, my assumption
has certainly not been that any 9 character string is allowed. It may have been
what you assumed, it was not what I assumed and argued for, and what Bob has
assumed is different still. Clearly there is no agreement.

Still, you are trying to drive the discussion away from the key issue. The only
reason I see for WL-xxxxxx is for wildcard IGating (if there is another reason
please share). So far Bob and three others on the APRS SIG have sided with me,
and none with you. Anything which defaults to wholesale IGating of data to RF
and relies upon filtering to prevent channel overload is dangerous.

Steve K4HG