[aprssig] Repeaters for mobiles.RE: OT: Yaesu to release digital amateur radio gear

[Bob Bruninga]

Was: RE: Yaesu to release digital amateur radio gear

> DSTAR down here (South of Macon, GA) is pretty dismal. 

Actually, I did a quick check of APRS around Macon, and there are two D-Star
nodes showing up on APRS (for mobiles) compared to 4 APRS recommended Voice
Repeater Objects plus two IRLP nodes.  If these are showing up on RF as they
should be every 10 minutes, then I'd say FM connectivity is about 3:1 over
Dstar.

> 2 meter FM is hopping here.  We're still putting up new machines...
> Some are pretty quiet, but we try to use all of them for nets, 
> etc. so they stay active and we know if there are problems.  

Interesting point.  Since 2004 we have promoted the once-every-10 minute
local FREQ object for travelers, but we do not want hardly-used repeaters
being advertized so much.  On the otherhand, we do not want them to
disappear from availability during an emergency.

Therefore I need to think of a way to show this second tier of repeaters
(kind of silent-majority) without burdening the local channel with moer
Beacons.  Maybe this is where the many APRS query-response systems can help.
They should list this second tier of available (but lightly used) open
repeaters.

Another possible idea is an OBJECT that contains the list of this secondary
tier of useable local freqs.  Since every KPC-3 and many other digipeaters
have multiple beacon capability, then they couild be used this way:

BEACON1 CCCCCC    - The Digipeater's own callsign and position packet
BEACON2 FFF.FFxyz - The #1 recommended check-in voice freq.
BEACON3 EL-xxxxxx - The local IRLP or Echolink node
BEACON4 etc
BEACON5 MACON     - This city-named Object contains a LIST of other freqs.

So when driving though MACON Georgia, on will see the FFF.FFF show up as the
contact frequency, but then the driver can also select the MACON object and
see a list of additional freqs or assets.  Though I cannot come up with a
good format that will nicely fit all displays for all freqs.  But for 10 KHz
repeaters Id use the format:

14676T100
14724T156
22225T067
44420T103

Which is the frequency without decimal point, then the APRS Tone, and then a
space.  Each field is 10 bytes long as fits nicely on most displays.

Bob, WB4aPR