[aprssig] Tracker Smart Pathing

[Tom Russo]

On Tue, Mar 21, 2006 at 07:48:02AM -0800, we recorded a bogon-computron collision of the <jason at ke4nyv.com> flavor, containing:
> First things first, outdated, bandwidth hungry devices
> like the Kenwoods need to implement A SmartBeaconing
> like algorithm to get the over all packet number down.
>  Just this alone would help the crowded situation.

Now, this is a statement I need to check on.  Round these parts I have 
*NEVER* seen "SmartBeaconing" do anything but produce *more* packets than
any sane fixed beacon rate station.  

We have a few stations in the area that are running TinyTrakIIs with smart
beaconing turned on.  When they're operating, I routinely see 3-5 packets 
per minute from them if they're on any kind of windy road --- that is, most
of the ones outside the city.  I think this is due to the corner-pegging 
feature -- great for producing a detailed map of the road up to Sandia
Crest (where a prominent local digi lives), but not very channel-friendly.  
Sometimes I've even seen that level of output from them even when they're on 
freeways.  

Presumably this is due to inappropriate setting of the SmartBeaconing 
parameters, but to date I've never seen a TinyTrak with SmartBeaconing turned
on do anything but spew huge numbers of packets.  Before we had the new N-n
paradigm around these parts, these trackers running RELAY,WIDE were a joy to
have around...  

So what parameters have folks used with SmartBeaconing that has actually 
allowed reasonable packet rates under normal circumstances?

-- 
Tom Russo    KM5VY     SAR502  DM64ux         http://www.swcp.com/~russo/
Tijeras, NM  QRPL#1592 K2#398  SOC#236 AHTB#1 
"And, isn't sanity really just a one-trick pony anyway? I mean all you get is
 one trick, rational thinking, but when you're good and crazy, oooh, oooh,
 oooh, the sky is the limit!"  --- The Tick