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Help Build An Open Tracking And Telemetry System

Posted by timothy on from the neat-stuff-wants-your-help dept.

Rorschach1 writes "Many /.'ers are already familliar with APRS, the Automatic Position Reporting System that's been mentioned here numerous times, most recently in the article on the Linux-powered weather balloon. It's one of the coolest things going in ham radio these days, but the APRS message protocol itself is rather hairy and bloated, and suffers from a distinct lack of extensibility. The OpenTRAC project aims to fix it, but we need your help." Read on to find out the details of what sort of help they're looking for as well as some more information about the project generally.

"For those who don't know, APRS is a messaging system used primarily on the amateur radio 2-meter band for relaying position reports, telemetry, weather data, and other such bits of information. The network has grown to the point where it can get your packets from almost anywhere in the US (and much of the rest of the world) to one of countless Internet gateways. Writing software (especially for embedded systems) for use with APRS, though, can be a real nightmare. OpenTRAC (for Open Tactical Reporting and Communications) is an open-source effort to develop an APRS-like protocol that builds on what we've learned over the past decade of APRS use, and avoids much of the ugliness of the APRS specification.

So far, though, we've got a small handful of developers working on the project. Input from people like the hackers building Linux weather balloons and such would be much appreciated. We're also in need of someone familliar with public key cryptography, particularly ECDSA. (No, the traffic won't be encrypted - only signed.) AX.25 gurus are also welcome, though the protocol isn't restricted to AX.25.

Linux and ham radio have always shared a kind of symbiosis, and I'd really like more input from the OS side. So check out the website, read the (very much in-work) specification, and let me know what you think."

5 of 23 comments (clear)

  1. My guess is... by handsomepete · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    I noticed this too. This is a new category as of today. While it isn't turned off by default in regular accounts, the story is only appearing to a select few. Which people those select few are is hard to tell, but maybe they're testing the new subscriber 'perk' of being able to see stories before they're posted by giving folks with good+ karma access to this story first? I'm not a subscriber, so it probably isn't that. Just a guess. Maybe it's just a bug.

    Regardless, it's kind of odd.

    1. Re:My guess is... by MattCohn.com · · Score: 0, Offtopic

      Interesting. Another story using this same new catigory works fine, though. Not logged in this story doesn't show. Logged in it does. I also have Collapse Sections (show stories from all sections, unless specifically excluded) enabled, mabey that's it. It isn't in a subsection though... so huh. Does everyone else here have collapse sections enabled?

    2. Re:My guess is... by Rorschach1 · · Score: 0, Offtopic

      Man, I knew I shouldn't have picked the new topic. I got my server all geared up for a slashdotting, finally got a story posted, and it gets buried in the least-visible spot imaginable.

    3. Re:My guess is... by handsomepete · · Score: 0, Offtopic

      Don't worry, they'll repost it.

    4. Re:My guess is... by jeffy124 · · Score: 0, Offtopic

      just repeated what you did - logged out, checked all sections, etc. couldnt find it.

      Logged back in, where i do have Collapse Sections enabled.

      Tried taking the url from where i was logged in, logged out and pasted the url in, found it ok.

      As another said - they might have to repost it.

      --
      The One Rule Of Chess You'll Ever Need: Don't play someone who carries a kit in their bookbag.