[aprssig] pointless text in the status (was: Preparing for a longroadtrip - VA)

[Dave Baxter]

My five eggs worth......

Plus, if too many people even just start saying "Hi, saw you on my
screen how goes?" on your APRS frequency, there is even more congestion
on .390 (or .800 in EU)  Is it not possible to use another frequency
that will not clag up the data channel?

As for "Just look at the D7 or D700 screen (The D7 only has 2 lines btw)
to see who caused the beep"  Yeah right...  A fraction of a second after
one posit arrives, the next one comes in and knocks it out of view.  Not
a lot of good, and even worse if driving, so don't even think of saying
just push this, turn that etc...

"VA" is also used here as an abbreviation for our local repeater (GB3VA)
so could be misconstrued as, "listening on VA".

Also, of course, you could see someone on your GPS screen, flagging that
they have Voice Alert active, but you'd never contact them by voice, as
digi's don't pass voice of course!  Just because you are in range of a
beacon, doesn't automatically mean you are in voice range, that beacon
could have taken the scenic route (if only 2 or 3 hops) to get to you.
That situation could be even worse in a built up or hilly area.

Don't get me wrong, Voice Alert is a good useful feature, but sadly I
can see if you publicise it too much, you could make a rod for your own
back, when the voice traffic begins to impact the APRS data traffic, all
on one frequency.  Personally, in the UK, I don't know anyone who uses
it.  Is there anyone here that does?

Lastly.  The reported bug(?) with TT3's, and the PTT (Anyone spoken with
Byon?)  You could use SOTT, open sourced so roll your own, etc.  Then
you can implement whatever PTT scheme you wish.  The last time I looked
though, it didn't have smart beaconing, but there was much talk about
it.  That, over a year and a half ago.  I guess Scott will be checking
his Opentrack behaviour for that "feature", unless he knows it hasn't
got it from the outset...

73.

Dave G0WBX.