X-APRS: a new protocol

[Heikki Hannikainen]

Hi,

I fully support the new X-APRS protocol initiative, it just plain makes
sense.

Experimental services are already live on aprs.fi, with IPv6 and load
balancing. "telnet xaprs.aprs.fi 20482" to see the convenient, easy-to
parse and lightweight data stream.

https://aprsdroid.org/xaprs/

I've also set up a service on the AMPRnet/Hamnet: telnet 44.139.11.254 20482

With a little effort, I'm hoping we could phase out and turn off the
legacy APRS-IS services by the end of this year.

- Hessu

On Sat, 1 Apr 2017, Georg Lukas wrote:

> Hi all,
>
> in the past I've often realized that APRS-IS does not work well with
> mobile TCP/IP - latency on 2G or 3G causes delays that skew the position
> reports; interruptions in the data connection are almost impossible to
> detect at application level, and thus cause packet drops, etc.
>
> On the other hand, with my other project (yaxim, a mobile client for the
> Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol / XMPP), all of these
> problems have been solved years ago. Now I have come to the conclusion
> that APRS and XMPP have many things in common:
>
> - They are both network protocols to send real-time GPS and message
> packets.
> - They are mainly parsed by computers and displayed in a processed form.
> - Both have a vast network of distributed servers to distribute data.
> - For both, there are sophisticated web interfaces available.
> - etc.
>
> Therefore, I decided to bring together the best of both worlds and
> created X-APRS: a revival of APRS based on the XMPP protocol.
>
> You can find the protocol specification with color-coded examples here:
>
> https://aprsdroid.org/xaprs/
>
> Starting with the upcoming version 1.4, APRSdroid will only support
> X-APRS over TCP/IP and HamNet, and legacy ARPS will be slowly phased
> out.
>
> However, this should not be a problem, as the new protocol will also be
> supported by aprs2net and aprs.fi (expect separate announcements soon).
> Client and server developers are encouraged to jump in and implement the
> protocol, using one of the many available XMPP libraries.
>
> You can have a peek at the data stream by issuing one of the following
> commands:
>
> telnet xaprs.aprsdroid.org 20482
> telnet 44.139.11.254 20482
>
> 73 from Germany,
>
> Georg DO1GL
>
> --
> APRSdroid - Open Source APRS Client for Android | http://aprsdroid.org/m
> https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.aprsdroid.app | @APRSdroid
>

[Lynn W Deffenbaugh (Mr)]

Is there a discussion group for this new protocol? I'd like to inquire
as to how filters will be implemented as well as how a client is
supposed to detect if a legacy aprs1 element has been Base-64 encoded or
if it just happens to contain only Base-64 characters?

And I have one other comment: VERBOSE by comparison! In the mobile
data and APRS 1200 baud word, more is not always better.

Lynn (D) - KJ4ERJ - Author of APRSISCE for Windows Mobile and Win32