[aprssig] Satellite positions: Objects or Stations?

[Lynn W. Deffenbaugh (Mr)]

On 10/15/2011 4:32 PM, la3qma at aprs.la wrote:
> I'm voting for the "qAS,KJ4ERJ".
> As long as its easy to find information on Internet on who is sending 
> out this info and that we all agree that it's ok to use the "callsign" 
> ISS, AO-51 etc
> Then people writing about this service also should mention that the 
> origin is KJ4ERJ.

q-Constructs are only to be added to a packet by an APRS-IS server.  If 
q-Constructs are present on packets being injected, they'll most likely 
be dropped at the entry point as being the result of a possible (and 
very dangerous) loop.  Can't do the qAS.

>
> The WHOI-IS WHO-15 is not telling who runs the service and i know that 
> this is more like a "service" and not a callsign.

Actually, it comes close to it if you look at the raw packets on the 
APRS-IS.  The callsign after the q-Construct is the APRS-IS logon of the 
server responsible for injecting the packet into APRS-IS, typically the 
callsign of the station running the WHO-IS server.

> Same goes for EMAIL why do it differently on ISS, AO-51 etc?

True, and the same goes for the injection server, and I could go for 
that, but I'd like a more explicit source.  But, I believe I'm going to 
stick with the objects, because I've got a better way to deliver (most 
of, outside of QSY tuning) Bob's ACTUAL desired information instead of 
the station posit that he was asking for.

>
> So maybe sending the a message to "ISS" with the text "%" then the 
> return message is:
> "%AOS:2:27m+8:53m"
> instead of
> "AOS:2:27m+8:53m"

I kind of like that suggestion, but I'm really trying to keep this 
smiple.  Send ANY text to ISS and you get the pass prediction.  Any 
other special message formats to remember, and maybe 1% of the users 
will remember them.

Let me see about getting the useful information into the hands and eyes 
of ANY messaging platform before we go customizing the response and 
building specific queries targeting a SINGLE platform.

Lynn (D) - KJ4ERJ - Author of APRSISCE for Windows Mobile and Win32

PS.  In the past 2 hours there were 18,342 unique callsign-SSIDs active, 
but 4,811 were objects.  6,047 stations indicated that they were 
messaging capable or on platforms that are known (to APRSISCE/32) to be 
messaging capable of which 1,155 were Kenwood radios (534 D710s, 449 
D700s, 89 D72s, and 83 D7s) where some unknowable percentage of the 
D700/D710 users have speech synthesizers.  2,678 were UI-View users.  
229 were APRSISCE/32 users.  So, why would I build custom Kenwood speech 
synthesizer support into a generic satellite pass auto-responder?