APRS History Lesson

Bob, WB4APR the creator of APRS gave an interesting APRS history lesson on the TasAPRS mailing list recently that provides some interesting background to the reasons APRS was created:

APRS is NOT a vehicle tracking system (though some recent programs think that is all it is because that is all they do).

APRS is a live digital network designed to exchange real-time
digital information between participants in the net about everything going on, not just vehicle positions. APRS is supposed to give you everything there is to know about the ham radio network surrounding you. GPS tracking was only ADDED in 1992 when GPS got cheap.

Given that APRS is a local digital real-time net, amateur radio nets take checkins and maintain a list of active participants in the net.

In APRS there are two net-cycle times defined. One is 10 minutes for special events and local activities and the other is 30 minutes for routine operations or regional nets. This gives everyone a consistent expectation about the activities in their net. After 10 minutes at an event, you should see everything happening. After 30 minutes, you should see everything going on in the region.

APRS is not an end in itself. It is the backbone net that informs everyone within the local net what is going on on ham radio at that instant. NOT just vehicle tracking!

Source: Wireless Institute of Australia

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