IDEAS.TXT OTHER SUGGESTED IDEAS FOR SOFTWARE WRITERS! =========================================================================== Document version: 7.9 Document dated: 16 Apr 97 Author(s): Bob Bruninga, WB4APR ABSTRACT IDEAS.TXT just some ideas for APRS software ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Don't let me have all the fun. There are lots of additional utilities and other neat applications for APRS waiting to be written! Please consider taking one of these on... APRS DIGIPEATERS: This may be the simplest mechanism for making an order of magnitude improvement in APRS status and position reporting networks. As of 1998 we now have WIDEn-n routing, but still, even the WIDE is redundant. There is no reason we can not save another 7 bytes per packet by using only the SSID of the TOCALL for the same N-N routing. See DIGIS.TXT. LEVEL FOUR UI FRAME ROUTING! There is a real nead for LEVEL-4 distribution of APRS UI frames through a network. A UI frame addressed VIA XXXXX should be routed by any NODE that hears it to the final NODE named XXXX. (It should already know the path!) There, at that final node, the UI frame is transmitted ONCE (or maybe twice some time later) as if it had been originated locally. See DIGIS.TXT. AUTODF NETWORK In TNC code for these special APRS nodes, there should be room to add an A/D reading or receiver signal strnegth and then transmitting that in an APRS OMNI-SIGNAL-STRENGTH DF format. This way, each APRS digipeater site, could also be used as an OMNI-DF site! See the README\DF.txt CALLSIGN and POSITION DATABASE NETWORK SERVER Since APRS includes the single station QUERY format for requesting a station to respond with his position report, there is no reason why any PC interfaced with the HAMCALL CD ROM could not listen for such QUERYS, and respond with a properly formatted APRS POSITION report for that station! APRS QUERIES: One other addition to complete the APRS philosophy, is to have the TNC respond with both its LText and BText randomly within one minute of seeing an APRS query; a UI frame to the address of APRS with the text field set equal to ?APRS?. This way, stations could drop back to a decayed beacon rate of once every 4 hours or so, but still would pop up on an APRS map if requested.