[aprssig] Doubling APRS messaging in ham radio overnight

[Scott Miller]

I'd like to see some real effort made to get IGate <> RF messaging 
working right.  I switched to Xastir for my IGate because I could never 
get APRSD to do it, and it WAS working, but when I tested it the other 
day I couldn't get anything from the Internet to RF.  I've been meaning 
to check on the Xastir list to see if anyone can figure out what's wrong 
- all of the interface settings look OK.

I've had friends and family drive all over the country, and I've only 
rarely been able to get messages through to them.  Usually only when 
they're passing through largish cities with several IGates.

As for the DTMF HTs, I just can't see it catching on enough to be really 
widely useful.

We really need to encourage the HT manufacturers to add some native 
messaging capability.  Or shoehorn it in there ourselves.  For the 
PX-777 radios I carry, I've found that it'd be possible to cram a small 
MCU board between the keypad/display panel and the radio board.  The bad 
news is that you'd still have to tap into the audio in/out elsewhere, 
and getting to the rotary encoder would be difficult.  If the ribbon 
cable was all that was needed for all of that, I think it'd be a viable 
product.

> So much to do, so little time.  And Scott and Byon are up to
> their eyeballs in mainline APRS projects, so lets spread the fun
> around!

I've got a new helper starting next week - might finally have time to 
get some projects done.  But I'll only consider taking on new projects 
if you don't automatically call all microcontrollers PICs.  =]
The 6800 was already old when I start working with it, but Microchip and 
their PICs weren't even on the horizon yet.

Scott
N1VG