[Xastir-Dev] giving objects a locally-defined tactical callsign

[Henk de Groot]

At 06:42 10-6-03 -0700, Curt Mills, WE7U wrote:
>On Tue, 10 Jun 2003, Alan Crosswell wrote:
>
> > Has any thought been given to the ability to change the name and symbol 
> of a
> > displayed station/object *locally*?  For example, I am NCS for a 
> bike-a-thon and
> > I know that the Mic-E tracker, N2YGK-9, is actually in Truck 3.  I 
> would like
> > Truck 3 to be what shows up on the map display.  Basically a simple 
> indirection
>
>That'd be useful for SAR as well.

We have had this discussion on the APRS SIG some time ago. Bob Bruninga was 
very much against it. The reason is that with local swapping of names not 
all stations see the same information unless this is very strictly 
coordinated and all stations use the same translation (but then it is not 
local anymore). I think he has a good point here. If you change N2YGK-9 to 
"Truck 3" and start using the name "Truck 3" in your conversations then the 
others don't have a clue what you are talking about, they can't see any 
"Truck 3". If you used N2YGK-9 then the others would know where to look at. 
It can can become quite confusing and I think during a SAR the last thing 
you want is add confusion.

You have of course to decide yourself but I think I have to agree with Bob 
that this is a bad idea.

Kind regards,

Henk.