James VE6SRV wrote... > How do you figure it wouldn't be a valid comparison?
I meant it wouldn't be a valid comparison because based on Fred's comments, coverage wasn't very good in his area. While his test would be with his HT and his in-vehicle based digi in more or less the same place, they would both be beaconing away in an area where he says even his 40W tracker doesn't always make it to a WIDEn-N digi unless it goes through his home fill-in digi. > 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. I understand that and fully agree! > This is akin to the old ongoing SNL news report from Gilda Radner > "Generalísimo Francisco Franco is still dead!". Sitting in the parking > lot at work all day is not a notable event every 3 minutes. In Fred's case, it might be something like "if a tree falls in the forest and no digi or IGate heard it, did it make any noise? hi! > I would think the comparison would be valid in that the total number > of packets over a period of time would be compared, as well as the > quality of information provided from each tracker. Which units sent the more useful information? SmartBeaconing will send packets that depict significant events, such as the corners made showing which streets last turned onto. OK, I'll concede that it's a useful test, but it would be more useful if his test was while driving where there was near 100% reliability to his fill-in digi AND near 100% reliability from there to a WIDEn-N digi that could be heard by an IGate... or by another digi that could be heard by an IGate. While there will never be 100% reliability, there is certainly better coverage in some areas than others. If Fred always operates in an area where coverage is very poor, he might want to consider using more aggressive settings even with SmartBeaconing. I certainly wouldn't recommend any such thing if he was operating where there was more APRS infrastructure and more APRS users sharing the precious bandwidth. 73 es cul - Keith VE7GDH -- "I may be lost, but I know exactly where I am!"
