Visual Alert - station with Status EMERGENCY

[José Ernesto Peñaloza del Valle]

Could stations with an EMERGENCY status, or the words SOS or EMERGENCY at the beginning of your comment, be "highlighted" in some way? It can be: a unique and noticeable icon, or a blinking circle around the station, or a text with large fonts that emerges spontaneously over the station. I think it would be a great support to the RA APRS stations, which could eventually be compromised and also, it is a feature that has been longed for by the community for years. A cordial greeting. CD3PFL Stgo-Chile.

[Haim Rodrik]

Dear Jose,

Recently I launched a classic GPS tracker, which reports  SOS and/or breakdown/accident alerts to the aprs.fi website. The service is free and only for members. This is a unique car/kids/elder-people tracking device in the market

aprs.fi - live APRS map unfortunately there is no icon which supports accident, car breakdown pr SOS button pressed.

The trackers are ready for the open market. 

Saludos, 

On Sat, Feb 11, 2023 at 8:55 AM José Ernesto Peñaloza del Valle <servicio...@gmail.com> wrote:

Could stations with an EMERGENCY status, or the words SOS or EMERGENCY at the beginning of your comment, be "highlighted" in some way? It can be: a unique and noticeable icon, or a blinking circle around the station, or a text with large fonts that emerges spontaneously over the station. I think it would be a great support to the RA APRS stations, which could eventually be compromised and also, it is a feature that has been longed for by the community for years. A cordial greeting. CD3PFL Stgo-Chile.

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Thank you.

[Heikki Hannikainen]

On Sun, 12 Feb 2023, Haim Rodrik wrote:

> Recently I launched a classic GPS tracker, which reports  SOS and/or breakdown/accident alerts to the aprs.fi website. The service is free and only for
> members. This is a unique car/kids/elder-people tracking device in the market
> aprs.fi - live APRS map unfortunately there is no icon which supports accident, car breakdown pr SOS button pressed.
> The trackers are ready for the open market.

Haim,

Before we continue the discussion, I need to confirm, if your tracker is
for car/kids/elder-people who are also licensed amateur radio operators?
Or actually completely open market?

How does the tracker technically report these events to aprs.fi?

- Hessu

[Heikki Hannikainen]

Something like that would be useful, yes. But I would rather have it
standardized and documented so that other APRS applications could
implement it consistently. It'd be silly if it would only work on aprs.fi.

The Mic-E packet format already defines an "emergency" Mic-E status code,
this can be found in APRS101.PDF, Chapter 10: Mic-E Data Format, Mic-E
Messages, page 45. This would obviously be used for Mic-E positions, and
the Kenwood radios I believe can already transmit this.

But I can't figure out if something like this has been specified already
for other position formats.

There is an existing symbol labeled "Emergency": \!

- Hessu

[Haim Rodrik]

Hi,

The tracker is to open market, however the Emergency, accident  alerts feature reporting to the APRS.FI platform dedicated ONLY FOR LICENSED AMATEOUR RADIO OPERATORS.

To be able set the device to the aprs.fi need to set, Call sign, SSID, APRS access PW parameters.  Device can be used to track cars , drones ( crash site location) also without violating aprs.fi web site rules. 

regards

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[Bob Poortinga]

I guess the question should be: does it transmit on amateur radio frequencies or frequencies that require a license?

Bob W9IZ 

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[Haim Rodrik]

Thank you very much for your valuable remarks and information. Those devices regularly report to the www.netfleet.us, www.netfleet.uk, www.netfleet.ca, www.ubicacionGPS.es websites for fleet management or any other  location based services. The feature which is dedicated only for the apr.fi licence members, the emergency alerts sent simultaneously to service website and to aprs.fi platform, both . So far the emergency situation alerts may save members' lives. 

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[Haim Rodrik]

TCP communication to the apps.fi server. No wireless communication, which is more reliable to send emergency messages

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[Heikki Hannikainen]

On Mon, 13 Feb 2023, Haim Rodrik wrote:

> TCP communication to the apps.fi server. No wireless communication, which is more reliable to send emergency messages

Which server exactly? Hostname, port, URL? Which API endpoint?

Are you sending actually directly to aprs.fi somehow, or the APRS-IS
server network which feeds a lot of other places and systems than aprs.fi?

- Hessu

[José Ernesto Peñaloza del Valle]

Hello to each and every one of the contributors who have contributed their comments to this thread, 73! The development of RODRIK is a good contribution and I appreciate the info. I think that to monitor the status of a particular family member or friend, it can be very useful. The fact of not creating extraordinary visual alerts, would not upset anyone either, except those who are interested in monitoring those specific stations; However, my concern points to a broader alert standard, with some type of notorious visual notification, which will not go unnoticed by any RA, as it is in Kenwood, yaesu and icom equipment that incorporates tnc aprs and where the mic-states e emergency, they activate large screens, very notorious and with quite striking alert sounds. HEIKKI already mentioned it, unfortunately aprs.fi (and I don't think the others either) are not capable of creating this type of extraordinary visual alerts.
Of course, a standard of this nature deserves the responsibility and awareness of each operator, so as not to create alerts without justification, since these could create chain reactions, in response to the possible contingency of the operator.
We must also consider that many old applications no longer have development, in which it may be impossible to implement a new line of programming that allows these alerts to be integrated, however, just as hardware manufacturers have considered this utility, also present and future ones. developments could well keep it in mind.
I share with HEIKKI that this implementation could be documented and standardized so that all types of APRS applications can integrate it at some point and only our concern in this regard could motivate these new and relevant changes.
Simplifying, the mere ability to read the mic-e states in emergency, of hardware equipment, could already trigger these extraordinary alerts, but in aprs software such as aprsdroid, pocket packet, or aprs pro se (which can eventually be used to control a portable transmitter such as TNC in kiss mode), perhaps the implementation is a bit more lengthy and complex.
imagine an RA isolated by an avalanche; a colleague who while trekking has an accident in the mountains; an earthquake where usual communications are lost and require rescue as soon as possible...
aprs provides locations, we can send messages, we can set the state of emergency, but who will be aware of this state will only be the stations with hardware equipment prepared.
having thousands of RAs attentive to aprs via aprs.fi, yaac, direwolf, ui-view32, etc, who do not have tnc hardware equipment, but who are always attentive to the network, it would greatly facilitate their ability to collaborate in such cases, Follow an emergency confirmation protocol, notify emergency agencies and activate the necessary relief actions.
I reiterate, all this is based on the responsibility and conscience of each operator.
also note that there are other states, such as priority and committed, which are intended for less critical states than an emergency; there is even a state for tests, which simulates and uses the same mechanisms of a real emergency, but which explicitly notifies that it is a test. This, as I remember, was developed in one of the already existing aprs software, but due to lack of standardization, it has not become widespread.
aprsdirect.de has an interesting peculiarity that could be extrapolated for states of emergency and that is that in its graph, flashes are generated in the stations that emit beacons/replays. Instead of that, it would be more useful for these flashes to be generated only when a state of emergency appears. It is just an idea to show how this functionality could be extrapolated to aprs.fi for states of emergency.
One contribution is that there is a url that compiles the latest states of emergency at http://www.findu.com/cgi-bin/emergency.cgi
unfortunately we must have an additional window open to be aware of them and probably due to lack of standard, many of them are not even true.
I reiterate the importance of the operator's awareness and responsibility, but also the ability to educate the RA community, regarding these matters and possibilities.
Another idea is that perhaps using the first characters of the beacon comments area, some acronyms can be defined, which, when read by the servers, can trigger extraordinary alerts.
In short, I hope that present and future developments support the implementation of these extraordinary alerts in each software, a standard can be created for it and only there, will we be able to educate and correctly exploit such a vital and "at hand" tool. of the entire RA community, which could even motivate more people to join, such as climbers, rescue forces, among others.
a big 73!

[Haim Rodrik]

Good afternoon,

I am sending the emergency alerts via http://france.aprs2.net:14501/ by TCP 

Regards

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[Haim Rodrik]

Dear Friends,

As per Mr. Heikki, I started to write a document. Later I will share here a draft copy for your reference, approval and corrections. I attached here all ranges of the trackers, from kids, elderly people, Alzheimer patients, cars, etc.  The firmware updated to support aprs.fi website. 

Only members of RA are able to use it,  the additional features dedicated to RA members. The rest standard Fleet management of personal features remain as is. The parameters should be set by the user, Call Sign, SSID, Password, car plate (or phone number if it's not a car),and enable/disable the service.  If the Call sign is not entered, the system skips on RA parameters, no alert will be sent to the aprs.fi. 

Reporting emergencies in time, saves lives. Mr. Jose Ernesto indicated that a dedicated pop up window for emergencies with animated GIF icons can be useful. I will see if I can find something suitable. BTW, regardless, reporting to the aprs.fi, a background service in my server, sending sms messages, email, and audio visual alert too. My server application is not monitored all the time by the users, aprs.fi is always randomly monitored, by members  open to the public. BTW Google map is free in case the website does not have a password and is open to the public.  The reason that Google is charging fees from APRS.fi is because of the login password. 

Thank you, 

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[Heikki Hannikainen]

On Thu, 16 Feb 2023, Haim Rodrik wrote:

> As per Mr. Heikki, I started to write a document. Later I will share here a draft copy for your reference, approval and corrections. I attached here all ranges of the
> trackers, from kids, elderly people, Alzheimer patients, cars, etc.  The
> firmware updated to support aprs.fi website.

No need to post it here; this forum is for discussion of the aprs.fi web
site and software only.

But remember that when you post something to APRS-IS, you are posting it
to the worldwide APRS-IS network which feeds quite a few other web sites
and databases, not just aprs.fi. aprs.fi is just one of the 22000 clients
of APRS-IS (https://status.aprs2.net/).

Also, we can not have alerts and positions of children of amateur radio
operators, or elderly parents of amateur radio operators here. Only
positions actually intentionally transmitted by the amateur radio
operators themselves.

I'm a bit worried that a product targeted for the general public will
invite that general public to come up with random callsigns, and passcodes
from a web page passcode generator.

> BTW Google map is free in case the website does not have a password and
> is open to the public.  The reason that Google is charging fees from
> APRS.fi is because of the login password. 

No, that is simply not true.

Google had a very generous free tier in the past, but that changed years
ago (2018 I think?) when pricing went up and free tier went down. It
totally does not matter if there is a login requirement or not. It's free
up to $200.

Go to https://mapsplatform.google.com/pricing/ and try to dial the roughly
1 000 000 monthly map loads of aprs.fi in the "Maps JavaScript API" to get
a rough idea. On the "Places" tab, Geocoding API is used for the address
search feature (geocoding: "find coordinates for this address typed in by
the user please"), and that also gets some hits.

But, aprs.fi now has very generous free credits level for the Maps API
again. I'll have to monitor it and make sure it is not exceeded, and if it
is, make a quick move.

- Hessu

[Joni Kähärä]

> Go to https://mapsplatform.google.com/pricing/ and try to dial the roughly 1 000 000 monthly map loads of aprs.fi in the "Maps JavaScript API" to get a rough idea.

Now getting what you actually meant with "nice HF rig every month" (ಥ﹏ಥ)

    Joni OH2EWL

[Haim Rodrik]

Note: The APRS related features are dedicated to RA members only with legal callsign. Without call sign and password APRS and verification, the features are not active.

Is a free service, used in case of emergency only. 

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