"Charles Brabham" wrote in message:

APRS was developed as a packet radio "killer application" by folks
associated with TAPR in the US.

Hi Charles:

I don't believe that is true. If you'll check early issues of Gateway
(I think around 1993) you'll see APRS was initially developed to track
sailboats out of the U.S. Naval academy in Annapolis, MD. So if you
want to go pointing fingers, point it at the U.S. Navy.

Now, if your claiming TAPR shameless tried to ride the coattails of
APRS, then I will agree with you. Their only real contribution to APRS
was to form the APRS working group, which they quickly cut and run
from leaving a adminstrative FUBAR'ed mess behind.


The idea is to kill any interest in packet by eliminating its most
interesting and useful features, substituting a pointless internet-dependent
activity sure to put just about anyone to sleep.

Have you even run APRS? Up until about 1998 it didn't even use the
internet, and the way it uses the internet is as a giant data
collector. APRS is firmly in the RF domain, even if some people use it
to track their homes ;-(

APRS fits TAPR's ideal of a "killer application" perfectly - It kills off
all interest in the hobby.

TAPR bashing aside, APRS has generated quite a bit of interest in the
hobby, and a strong case could be made it has prolonged interest in RF
based packet radio.

The more TNC's they can talk hams into tying up
so they can report thier house's position on the internet, the less will be
used for communicating as hams or doing anything else that may be
interesting or useful.

Ahh.... now that is the rub, isn't it? "anything interesting or
useful"

What do you suggest? The only other popular packet application on the
horizon I see is WinLink. You may not like that, but those are the
facts. And oh, did I mention, WinLink has a form of APRS position
reporting in it as well.

Charles, you interest in some of streaming protocols is well placed.
This could be a killer application if further developed and refined.
If your that concerned, I suggest putting efforts into that.