[aprssig] requesting icons

[Stephen H. Smith]

Paul Fenrich wrote:
> John,
>
> I am wondering the same thing.  I do special events here in Texas in 
> the Austin area.  I think symbols like a turtle and a hare would be 
> useful.  Perhaps we could share what we learn about this.
>
> Paul
> KA5FZU
>
> John Fritze wrote:
>> I was wondering who might know how special icons could be made for 
>> the APRS beacon stations?  For example, when I hike I carry a D7g 
>> with a Deluo lite attached and would like my emblem to be a hiker, 
>> not a jogger. 
>>  

This issue seems to come up about every 6 months on various APRS mailing 
lists....  Repeating yet again:


APRS symbols (icons) are NOT little bit map graphics transmitted through 
the air by each user.   They are images stored ahead of time at the 
RECEIVING end.    All you TRANSMIT is a two-character alpha-numeric 
shorthand code that causes the receiving end to select a symbol from the 
stored set and display it on their map.

To get everyone to see a new symbol requires that EVERYONE update the 
locally-stored symbol set in their programs or hardware devices (i.e. 
GPS displays, Kenwood radios, etc).  Not to mention the online services 
such as findu, aprs.fi, openaprs, etc. 

Further, in some programs, the symbol set is embedded inside the 
compiled .EXE file and is not readily available to be replaced even if 
you were willing to do so.



------------------------------------------------------------------------

--

Stephen H. Smith    wa8lmf (at) aol.com
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"APRS 101"  Explanation of APRS Path Selection & Digipeating
  http://wa8lmf.net/DigiPaths

Updated "Rev H" APRS            http://wa8lmf.net/aprs
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