TAPR announces release of the second public draft of
the APRS Protocol Specification.
-----------------------------------------------
It's finally here! The APRS Working Group has completed the second
public draft of the APRS Protocol Specification.
This document covers the core functionality of APRS Protocol Version
1.0 as it works today. This is the base level specification that all
implementations should comply with, and it was unanimously adopted by
the Working Group members, who include the authors of APRS-DOS,
WinAPRS, MacAPRS, X-APRS, PocketAPRS, APRS+SA, javAPRS, and APRServe,
and the developers of the Mic-E and Pic-E products.
The Specification forms the basis for future Working Group projects,
including APRS test suites and the APRS Certification Program. The
WG also hopes to use this document as the basis for further speci-
fications, including IGate and APRS digipeater operation.
Over the last 8 weeks the specification has grown from 18 pages to 93.
It now includes packet format diagrams, the APRS symbol tables, full
details of the Mic-E encoded format, the compressed lat/long position
format, plus weather report and telemetry formats. Above all, the
specification contains many examples of how APRS data is formatted to
make it easier to understand.
The APRS Protocol Specification is now available on the APRS Working
Group web page at: http://www.tapr.org/tapr/html/Faprswg.html.
It is available in PDF format, both zipped and unzipped. The zip file
is
a little under 1.5MB. You can read it with a PDF reader such as Adobe
Acrobat 3 or 4.
This document is still a draft. There will now be a 15-day public
discussion period in which anyone may feed back comments, criticisms
and suggestions for improvement. Full information on how to do this is
contained within the document.
The final cutoff for comment is midnight U.S. Pacific time on Sunday 19
December (i.e. 0800 UTC on Monday 20 December).
After this date the Working Group will consider all the comments, and
will issue the final approved version of the Specification as soon as
possible thereafter.
John Ackermann, N8UR (terhi.victor@logonet.com)
Administrative Chair
APRS Working Group
4 December 1999