[aprssig] NOSaprs update - cross port digi with callsign substitution

[maiko at pcs.mb.ca]

On Wed, 22 Jun 2005, Robert Bruninga wrote:

> but please don't use such a poor example of a path:

Noted. Thank you. That's my ignorance showing. I'm not a hardcore APRS
person, so advice from others (such as the example I presented) shows up
from time to time.

Now - to be fair, people have also asked for these types of features,
which is why they have been created, so those people can experiment.

You have to understand something Bob. There are people using NOS that
have multiple ports on both VHF and UHF frequencies, wormholes to other
machines (virtual radio channels over the internet). Many of the NOSaprs
users don't even sit on the standard APRS frequencies. We experiment, and
conventional packet radio is still of primary interest to many of us.

Being able to use our existing NOS system, without having to scrap it for
a whole new system (just to support some basic APRS functionality) is why
the NOSaprs project was started.

> 1) It is a 3 hop path that is not welcome in
> most high density areas of the APRS system

In New York perhaps, but on the prairies in the central region
of Canada, density is no where near as high. What do you think  ?

> 3) This path modification expands its load on
> the network adding to network congestion

Understood.

> Until some other routing method is developed the senders
> intent in his  path  should be honored as long as it is not
> abusive to the network.

My understanding is that with the current routing method, the
senders path is of no value. It is not able to be used in any
way by the recipient in the return message, so in the end it
just takes up packet space. Is this correct ?

I've been hearing about 'some other routing method' for ages,
but I haven't seen anything surface. Perhaps us conventional
packet users could contribute to this. If anyone has a vision
they would like to share with the rest of us, maybe we can
begin working on this 'other routing system'.

That would be a very interesting project !

> I would be very incensed to see my packets sent
> as WIDE2-2, arriving somehwere else as WIDE3-3
> beacuse someone thougth that their area wanted
> to make my packets go farther.

Is that really a big deal ?

That's like me calling CQ on 3650, but I don't want
anyone further than Staten Island to come back to me.
If a guy in Albuquerque comes back to me, do you really
think I'm going to want to ignore him ? Or worse, get
all upset about it ? I don't think so.

The point is that I can't control the conditions of the
network, being a mere sender of a message. If you think you
guys are having problems with standard on APRS, see if you can
remember the old days when BBS forwarding was going on 145.01,
and all it took was one sysop to impose his own standards or
*restrictions* on what was allowed to forward or not. Things
broke very quickly from there. That's the funny thing about
our hobby isn't it ?

Maiko