[aprssig] Tracker Smart Pathing

[Robert Bruninga]

>*NEVER* seen "SmartBeaconing" do anything but 
>produce *more* packets than any sane fixed 
>beacon rate station.  ...Presumably this is due 
>to inappropriate setting of the SmartBeaconing 
>parameters...

The often quoted advantage of smart beaconing
that on a long straight road will send fewer becons
is to me a disadvantage.  when I'm headed down the
interstate at 60 MPH is when I want 1 minute packets
at least direct so that I have a chance of seeing/
hearing someone coming the opposite direction.
If you arent beaconing at at least a 2 minute rate,
and your mobile to mobile range is only about
4 miles, you wont hear each other on APRS
voice alert.

The biggest advantage of smart beaconing is when the user
stops the car and leaves it on overnight.  then the rate
falls and the network is saved.  But my experience is
that the owners of these trackers often set the rates
high enough so that they get frequent updates
anyway, and so again, it looks good on paper, but
the potential for wrong settings can actually make things
worse in some cases.

Whereas the Proportional Paths algorithm has no settings
that can be abused.  And anything the user does that
might be offensive is kept local with fewer and fewer
packets going beyond 2 or 3 hops.

Again, not knocking smart beaconing, Its just that
there are a lot of issues involved in set-up that
can ruin a good thing.  We have 3 trackers in 
our area that are consuming more bandwidth
than probably 100 other users.  

Just a thought
Bob