On 08/17/2009 03:31 PM, James Ewen wrote: > > I don't think it will be a very valid comparison in your area. You say > > that you can't always get to a high digi from the 40W tracker in your > > vehicle, and that it often needs help from a digi at your home QTH. > > Running the HT at a fixed rate will probably get more position reports > > to an IGate just because it is beaconing all of the time. The 40 W > > tracker using SmartBeaconing will only beacon when it needs to... every > > few minutes at highways speeds and one or several times when it turns a > > corner, and down at a 10-30 minute rate when it's sitting still. > > How do you figure it wouldn't be a valid comparison? The concept > behind SmartBeaconing is to slow the rate down when nothing is > changing. The timed beacons are wasteful of resources because the > tracker beacons no matter what is going on.
It's only wasteful if there is somebody listening. If there are no reachable digi/igate/local user then it's not a waste of anything except power. At least in the context of this definition of "wasteful". Basically, if no one is using the shared channel then your not wasting anything. If APRS infrastructure is that sparse (or intermittently reachable), beaconing often is more likely to get the odd packet out to a digi. Using the NICE option on the tracker2 may be useful in such a situation. - michael
