AMPLIFYING COMMENTS ABOUT OBJECTS IN APRS WB4APR ------------------------------------------------------------------------- IDENTICAL TO POSITION REPORTS: Think of an OBJECT as 100% identical to a position report. You just take off the 9 character call, and then continue parsing it as if it were a position. This is intentional. It allows an OBJECT to be anything a station can be. Thus you can place WX objects, Moving objects, DF objects, ANY station on the map that cannot report his own position for some reason. NOTE: The algorithm above should not limit the 9 character callsign field above to just callsigns. Both upper and lower case and full 9 characters are permitted in Object Names. KILLED OBJECTS: The KILLED object format will KILL any matching NAMED Object, station or ITEM. It doesn't matter... Thats why we ask that the software only permit the "originator of an OBJECT" to be able to send out the KILLED OBJECT for that "named" object/item/posit...". This prevents users from inadvertantly killing someone else's posit from the system. A KILLED OBJECT is only a "replacement" object that is marked as "killed". It typically has the same object data but with the killed TYPE character. Thus it stays on everyones list (for future reference). But it only ceases to be displayed. The assumption being that NO ONE can ever completey cause other's data to vanish. It is simply marked for "no-display" so the other stations still have a copy in case it later becomes important. Or, think of it as simply a "replacement". In this case, only the CALL has to match." Yes, APRS lets stations kill any Station or Object from the map. But if the originator does not receive the KILL packet, and continues to transmit it, then it will re-appear... and in fact, since the new object will overwrite the sending stations "KILL" packet, it cancels his KILL efforts. This dueling-banjo effect is intentional to make sure that an owner and a killer have to make a concerted effort to either kill or retain an object. Thus it is hard to do by accident. ALSO, there is a format for "Killing an object from everyone's system". This can only be done by the originating station of that Object.. Although anyone can take over reporting responsibilty for any object, and once he has the responsibility, then he can kill it too... This is so someone else can globally kill someone else's long-dead object... Once killed (as in APRSdos), it still remains in all lists, but is marked as a KILLED object and only faintly appears on the map. The Object section of the spec should make mention that weather info can be included in an object/item packet. de WB4APR, Bob