[Xastir] Using time field data in Xastir objects plus trail colour

[Curt, WE7U]

On Sun, 30 Jan 2005, Tom Tessier wrote:

> I see there are some comments in the source code regarding the use of the
> time field in APRS packets, so someone must have thought about this before!
> Right now the age of positions in Xastir are based on when Xastir received
> them. This also applies to replaying saved trails - the age is shown from
> the time of replay, not the time the trail was originally recorded. This is
> great, and works very well. Now, the people I'm working with are looking at
> using Xastir in SAR situations. One thing that came up in discussion was
> that we may want to replay a past search trail as a comparison to a current
> one but want to make sure the replayed trail isn't confused with one that is
> fresh.
>
> If a received packet actually has the time embedded, it would be beneficial
> if the time in the packet be used throughout Xastir - or at least an option
> to do so - including playbacks. Is anyone looking at this kind of change?
> May I humbly volunteer to assist in this effort if this isn't already in the
> works?

Steve Dimse (the findu guy) has talked about this many times, and
has convinced me that he's right:  There are too many trackers out
there that are using incorrect time values, plus even home stations
are often way off.

Of course that's the general case.  I can see how you might want to
do this if you were tracking only a few objects which each had a
semi-accurate sense of time.

The case mentioned by someone else regarding a balloon is probably
the ideal case of this, as there are more variations in the timing
to findu than there are in the timing from the single object you're
tracking.

If we were to use the timestamp from the packet, our expiration code
would also need to be tweaked so that we didn't expire logfiles as
soon as they were read in.  I think we expire based on the timestamp
of each posit right now, so only the oldest trailpoints expire from
a station that is keeping somewhat current.

--
Curt, WE7U.   APRS Client Comparisons: http://www.eskimo.com/~archer
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