[aprssig] When to run a RELAY (and mobile ERP)

[Wes Johnston]

Wouldn't it be nice if your mobile rig could figure that out for itself?  If we
had the smarts in a TNC, we could know the PHG circle of the digi, and perhaps
your tracker could realize that it was too far from the digipeater but closer
to a home station and specify that home station's callsign.  No need for RELAYs
at all...

because PHG uses logarithms, the math is a little hard for a simple processor. 
I wish there was an alternative to PHG that just specified the range in miles
or KM's (or fractions of a degree lattitude).  Of course it would be harder to
offset coverage due to beam antennas, but in most cases we don't run beams.

Ohh well, there's always opentrac {ducking}.

Wes
--



Quoting Rich Mazzeo <forummail at richmazz.com>:

>
>     As we know, too many local RELAYs can add to the QRM.  It would be nice
> to have some guideline to determine when a home station should be a fill-in
> RELAY.
> Something like:
> "If a mobile running X watts ERP can't reach a digipeater directly while
> within Y miles of a home station (potential fill-in RELAY) then the station
> should be a RELAY."
> What ERP should we base mobiles on to determine this?
> And how large of a coverage hole should we tolerate before we turn on a
> relay?  1sq mile is probably not worth the extra traffic.  5? 7? This also
> depends on where the hole is.  Interstate vs. local road.
>
> And of course on the flip side: "If a mobile running X watts can reach a
> WIDE directly while within Y miles of an existing fill-in RELAY, then RELAY
> should be disabled."
>
> --
> Rich
> N3XKU
>
>
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