Over the period? 8 October 2024 to 26 October 2024, I will be on another extensive road trip, running HF APRS both over classic AX.25 packet, and over VARA.
A friend of mine is flying from Los Angeles to Chicago on the 8th. I will then take her for a fall color tour of northern Michigan, before driving her back to Los Angeles. This will be a long looping itinerary west from Michigan on I-80 to the Mississippi River, then south following the Great River Road (the secondary roads along the banks of the Mississippi) to New Orleans. ? Then west across Texas to northern New Mexico, southern Colorado and Arizona back to Calfornia.?? For anyone wanting to log four states in one transmission, I will be stopping at the "4-Corners" point on the Navajo Nation where Utah, Colorado, New Mexico and Arizona meet at one point.
I will be operating HF exclusively on 30 meters this time (no 60 meters tests).? As in the past I will use multiple SSIDs:
? -? WA8LMF (no SSID) is 2M VHF 144.39 and direct-to-Internet cellular data.
? -? WA8LMF-2 is 30M HF conventional 300-baud AX.25 packet APRS
? -? WA8LMF-3 is 30M HF APRS-over-VARA
Because these are full desktop-type APRS installations (3 instances of UIview) running on my newly-commisioned Panasonic CF-53 "Toughbook" mobile laptop in the car, I can receive APRS messages on any of the three modes. As before, the mobile rig is a Yaesu FT-891 running into a 30 -meter Quicksilver Radio "QuickStick" hamstick-type mono-band whip.
My personal APRS ? igate/mapping-webservers will be following my trip at:
<>
(These displays only show what my home station in central Michigan (East Lansing area) is hearing OFF-THE-AIR --? not from the Internet.)
Additionally, my new "RoadTrip Tracker" page at
<>
will provide a series of fixed-scale shaded-relief maps of the trip. The road trip tracker uses a combination of off-the-air reception and the APRS Internet feed.
30 meters normally has a skip zone of 250-300 miles; I.e. my home station in Michigan could never hear anything CLOSER than about Chicago, Cincinnati? or Toronto, Ontario.? Travels anywhere inside Michigan were never heard by my 30M igates when I was the ONLY APRS-over-VARA igate on the air.
??? Now that WA7GMX in the state of Washington, and WB8SKP in western Kentucky now appear to be running full-time APRS-over-VARA igates on 30 meters as well, the HF coverage should be much more consistent everywhere, even inside Michigan, then in the past. ? My trip up north in Michigan should be heard and igated by one or both of these other stations.? (Assuming another solar explosion/geomagnetic storm doesn't wipe out HF entirely!)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Stephen H. Smith wa8lmf (at) aol.com
Skype:??????? WA8LMF
EchoLink:? Node #? 14400? [Think bottom of the 2-meter band]
Home Page:
APRS-over-VARA igates now operating on 30 & 60 meters
<>
"Studio B" Ham Shack on Wheels
<>
-- APRS over VARA? --
<.>
