[aprssig] US APRS symbol usage

[Lynn W. Deffenbaugh (Mr)]

Stephen H. Smith wrote:
>
> I'm really surprised that packets from home stations outnumber ones from 
> mobiles, particularly since home stations (presumably ??) beacon at a 
> far lower rate than mobiles, especially mobiles with Smart 
> Beaconing.     And surely the ratio of cars to ambulances can't be 
> almost 2:1....,.
>
>   
I was surprised at that also, but then again, homes are easier/cheaper 
to set up.  Remember, this is from APRS-IS, not RF.  Therefore it counts 
all of those Internet-Only UI-View, xastir, and other APRS-IS clients 
that "beacon" to the Internet.  Beaconing rate doesn't affect the Uses 
count, only the packet count.  And remember, always-on Home stations 
would quickly swamp the only-while-moving mobiles in packet count.
> Any thoughts on these seeming anomalies ?    
>   
As for the cars to ambulances, all I can guess is that EOC and other 
emergency services may set up objects for ambulances while a lot of the 
rest of us might use trucks, vans, and Jeeps causing a dilution in the 
"car" count.
> [Just discovered that apparently you pasted some sort of table directly 
> into email, instead of converting  it to  plain text first.      It is 
> rendering with  "Uses" and "Packets" run together, yielding single 
> numbers in the millions for each row.]  
>   
That's why I attached the spreadsheet.  I'm on so many APRS-related 
groups, I forgot that this one was plain text only.  I trust that anyone 
that really cares about the numbers either already has or can acquire a 
way to view the spreadsheet.

Lynn (D) - KJ4ERJ