[Xastir] UDP frames

[Curt Mills]

On Mon, 10 Jan 2005, Gerry Creager n5jxs wrote:

> The conventional wisdom on the APRS list is that UDP is evil, because Bob
> wants an ack from everyone.  Every time.  Never mind that APRS uses UI data to
> work.
> 
> Steve D. has supported him in the past.  I'm still working on him, but not
> real actively.
> 
> I expect the next generation of the IS will look more like multicast than
> connected unicast, but that's my opinion.
> 
> Would it work?  Sure.  Would it be as "reliable" as the connected version?  I
> suspect that statistically, it would be, but the occasional lost packet would
> be seized on a failure.

"seized on as a failure" is what I assume you meant.

In my opinion (which ain't worth much!) UDP is a perfect fit for
APRS.  I say go for it, no matter what Bob/Steve might say.  _An_
implementation that works on 802.11 is better than _no_
implementation, right?

If a UDP port on a particular server was well-known, then one could
roam around town injecting APRS packets into whatever 802.11 network
was open, and be tracked, right?  It might be more useful with an
802.11 network set up for a smaller event, where officials could
keep track of the event on laptops with 802.11 cards, and the actual
trackers would be on ham APRS.  In that case you don't need UDP
though.

-- 
Curt, WE7U.				archer at eskimo dot com
http://www.eskimo.com/~archer
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