[aprssig] Come as you are ?

[William McKeehan]

I have been thinking about a statement that I have heard recently: "APRS is a
come-as-you-are network."

I wonder if that's really true. I know that day-to-day operations with APRS it
is a come-as-you-are network. I also know that because of that, "it" often
fails. One example that comes to my mind is that our local NWS office has an
APRS station; no one in the area sees their beacon or any messages from them
because they use a path that is not supported locally.

All of the events that I have heard about using APRS successfully have been
ones where one person or organization built the APRS network specifically for
the event, sometimes, even including building the tracking hardware.

Can anyone give me examples where APRS has "worked" (I leave the definition of
worked up to you) during an uncoordinated (i.e, an emergency situation) event?

I'm not looking to start an argument, but I am looking for real world examples
of how APRS can work.

-- 
William McKeehan
KI4HDU
Internet: mckeehan at mckeehan.homeip.net
http://mckeehan.homeip.net