[aprssig] SSID Standardization

[Bill Herrmann]

At 07:53 AM 6/6/2010, Bob Bruninga wrote:
>I think it is becomming more important to encourage standard SSID's 
>where possible for more instant situational awareness.

I have to agree with Earl though for different reasons.

Why are we trying to overload meaning that is contained elsewhere 
into a field that isn't well suited for it? What meaning are we 
conveying when things like "message capable" don't match? (Let's say 
I send a '!' data type identifier with a -0 SSID)

I know that some APRS clients did/do display those differently. It 
seems like the mobile applications should be capable of conveying 
that meaning too.

As an exercise - go look at your local digis and see how many 
messages have been sent to them...

The other problem, of course, is that you have no way to know which 
list the other station is running on, so you simply can't infer any 
meaning from that SSID. In fact, in your original message you pointed 
out that there will always be exceptions, so why not suggest some 
conventions and standardize on "the other data in the packet" is what 
gives it meaning.

Note: I specifically called out messaging above, but I could just as 
easily make the same argument, for things like digis, fixed, Igates, etc.

...and lets not even talk about the nightmare of getting web pages 
updated. I spot checked a half dozen of the pages on the first page 
that a search on "APRS SSID" brought up. There were several that were 
very similar but I found at least minor differences in every one of them.

My suggestion would be that we go back to what SSID was intended for 
in the first place and use it for a way to differentiate between 
multiple statons under the same callsign.

Bill