UI-View Bashing (was Re: APRS RF DX? (Was RE: [aprssig] APRS in Atlanta - flooding the network))

[Chris Rose]

I use WinAPRS and the way the information has to be
entered doesn't even give the user the chance to enter
exact information to calculate a correct PHG.  My
antenna is about 25' high and the only close entry I
can make is for 20'.  No entry between 20 and 50 feet
can be entered for my situation.  If my antenna was at
any heigth of 21 through 49 feet, I could enter 20 or
50 but not the exact entry for 35' for example.  I am
not sure about entries for higher antenna mounting.

Chris 
KB8UIH


--- hasan schiers <schiers at netins.net> wrote:

> Unrefined out of the box PHG circles based on user
> entered data that has not 
> been RF verified for actual coverage is an illusion.
> PHG for the sake of 
> PHG, without CALIBRATING the PHG values to reflect
> ACTUAL digi performance 
> is a waste of time, and worse.
> 
> Bob is correct that many PHG's aren't entered via
> add-on's for ui-view. What 
> Bob sometimes doesn't take into account is that
> probably 75% of the PHG's 
> circles don't reflect (even remotely) the REAL
> coverage, because they 
> haven't been "tweaked" to match the actual coverage,
> and this is NOT unique 
> to UI-View...it is a disease that afflicts all the
> aprs clients that support 
> PHG in one way or another. This is a user disease,
> not a client disease. The 
> users do not know, care or have the time to properly
> "tweak" the PHG values 
> so they represent actual RF performance.
> 
> Largely, because it requires active user
> intervention to set it up properly 
> (and I don't mean entering in the actual values for
> power/height/gain), it 
> is boderline useless.
> 
> Basically, you have to "fake out" the PHG to match
> the actual RF coverage of 
> the digi. Very few people have taken time to do
> this, so we end up with a 
> bajillion phg circles that are worse than
> meaningless, because they create 
> the impression that a certain coverage exists, when
> in fact the actual 
> coverage is far greater (typically) than the PHG
> circle would indicate by 
> typing in the actual Power/HAAT/Gain.
> 
> Remember how freaked out things get when we talk
> about changes that have to 
> be made, even one time, by the users of APRS, like
> digi-maintainers?  PHG 
> suffers from the same problem, only many times
> worse, because it creates the 
> illusion that one only has to enter
> Power/Height-HAAT/Gain, and everything 
> is ducky. Well, it isn't ducky.
> 
> So...are we better with totally erroneous PHG
> circles (most of the time), or 
> none at all, except those that are verified in terms
> of coverage? Maybe it's 
> a good thing that UI-View doesn't "natively" support
> PHG.
> 
> The whole issue is silly. PHG as implemented is a
> farce. If one wanted to 
> make a valid point in discussing PHG, it wouldn't be
> in the context of 
> UI-View, but rather in the context of how to
> PROPERLY set up PHG so that it 
> reflects reality...that's the REAL problem, which
> has ZERO to do with 
> UI-View or any other client. The requirement that
> the user "fudge" the 
> values to reflect reality for PHG to be useful,
> makes it nearly useless in 
> practical terms, as most users won't go to the time
> and trouble to make the 
> coverage measurements which will allow them to
> properly fudge the program.
> 
> PHG (or the lack thereof) debates are much ado about
> nothing. PHG "is" the 
> problem, not anything to do with client software.
> Thinking it is client 
> based is not seeing the forest for the trees.
> 
> ...hasan, N0AN