[aprssig] APRS Activity in New Orleans

[Robert Bruninga]

>Having said that, the following link shows APRS stations in 
>the vicinity of New Orleans which are active and making it 
>into the APRS-IS within the last four hours (realtime):

But none are any closer than 43 miles to downtown...They
are all up near Baton Rouge where there is a working IGate.

>Also, consider the information in this link showing *some* 
>of the stations receiving the W5UK-9 digi in New Orleans:

But looking more closely, one will note that receiving
the beacon from that digi requires one hop less than 
actually hearing a user in the vicinity of that one-hop-only
digi.  So unless an IGate hears that cental New-Orleans
digi *direct* then no traffic will make it out of New Oreleans
via that digi.

Any station that is hitting that excellent W5UK-9 digi
at 600 feet in downtown covering the surrounding
5000 square miles simply will not be able to get to the 
APRS-IS unless there is an IGate that hears W5UK-9
direct.  OR unless that person changes his own path
to VIA W5UK-9,WIDE2-1.

But the problem is, he is not aware that he is not 
getting out!   He is digipeating probably a WIDE2-2
or WIDE3-3 path, and he hears it being digipeated 
locally, so he probably assumes it is getting out.
but unless he fully comprehends that W5UK-9
is a one-hop digi, and changes his path as shonw
above, he wont.  

And, we should not expect him to have to worry
about these things.  We on the periphery should
be trying to get an IGate to hear W5UK-9 direct
so that we can give these affected people connectivity
to the outside.

>Once again, I must stress:
>DO NOT SEND MESSAGES TO ANY OF THESE 
>STATIONS UNLESS...

Very good advice.  Hopefully everyone has enough
common sense to do that.  But sometimes I wonder...

de Wb4APR, Bob