[aprssig] [tinytrak4] Most common APRS symbols

[Lynn W. Deffenbaugh (Mr)]

Byon Garrabrant wrote:
> I'd like to improve my $PGRMW code that maps APRS symbols to Garmin
> symbols.  There are lots of APRS symbols, and I imagine that there are
> only about 10-15 or them that would cover 99% of all APRS stations.
> My data-mining skill are not so honed, so, does anyone have, or can
> easily create, a table of APRS symbols, and the number/percentage of
> stations that use each one over, say, the last few months?
>   
> Thanks,
> Byon
>   

Well, my APRS-IS DB only accumulates North America and only for the past 
two weeks, but as Paul Vittorino reminded me, I had generated these 
exact statistics for the aprssig back in January 2009.  I located the 
tool and updated the spreadsheet which is located at:

http://tinyurl.com/APRSSymbols

or

http://ldeffenb.dnsalias.net.nyud.net/Symbols091206.xls

The packet counts in the spreadsheet represent only the traffic over the 
past 2 weeks.  However, as my DB never forgets a station, the symbol 
counts represent an accumulation over a much greater time span.

The tabs in the spreadsheet are:

Top 1000 (0912) - Graph of the most referenced symbols as of Dec 6 2009
Top 500 (0901) - Similar graph as of Jan 2009
Top 100 (0901) - Ditto but including lesser used symbols as of Jan 2009
200912 - Raw data for the first graph as of Dec 6 2009
200901 - Raw data from January 2009
SymbolNames - Lookup table for symbols to name

Use this as you will, and feel free to publish it, but please include 
the caveat that the data represents a snapshot in time from a 
non-validated collection of APRS-IS data.  It may or may not represent 
symbol usage over a different geographic region or different time 
period.  In fact, it may not represent much of anything at all!  Use it 
at your own risk.

Lynn (D) - KJ4ERJ - APRS Infrastructure Utilization Kibitzer

Paul Vittorino wrote:
> Byon,
>
> I had spoken with Lynn Deffenbaugh in January about this exact topic.  
> He was kind enough to compile a spreadsheet with his results.
> See http://www.tapr.org/pipermail/aprssig/2009-January/028315.html
>
> Paul
>
>