[aprssig] Track of road trip

[Brian Webster]

Joel,
	Thanks for the follow up on your trip. I'd say you are being a good
ambassador to ham radio. Great job and great reporting, hope your vacation
was fun too.



Thank You,
Brian N2KGC

-----Original Message-----
From: Joel Maslak [mailto:jmaslak-aprs at antelope.net]
Sent: Sunday, July 02, 2006 9:23 PM
To: TAPR APRS Mailing List
Subject: [aprssig] Track of road trip


I have to say I'm surprised at how well I was tracked for the trip:

http://www.findu.com/cgi-bin/track.cgi?
call=N7XUC-7&geo=usa.geo&start=500

As you can see, the only major gaps were eastern CO, western NE, much
of OH, and parts of PA.  Small patches of the track were lost
elsewhere, including, surprisingly, on my side-excursion from
Philadelphia to Washington DC.

Some of the rural areas, other than NE and CO, had surprisingly good
coverage because of a few well placed digis, while some of the more
populated areas had surprisingly poor coverage (perhaps due to too
many badly placed digis).  Of course some of the flat areas with low
traffic levels (Kansas) are easier to cover with a small number of
good digis than some of the higher traffic, but hilly areas (PA).

But, other than the major gaps in OH/PA/CO/NE, my very long trip had
great coverage.  I might not have had packets heard every time I
transmitted, but enough made it into the internet system that
friends, family, and coworkers have been able to track me.  All of
the tracking was done with 2m and a path of WIDE1-1,WIDE2-1.  I was
very surprised with how often the IGates heard me direct, but
certainly more than two hops - even in remote areas is unnecessary.
The areas without tracks were areas in which I didn't hear any other
stations on RF.

Once I got back near Laramie, I heard another ham on VA (the only non-
fixed station I ever heard on voice alert).  Even though I was worn
out from the driving, I gave a call on both 144.39 and 146.52, but
alas did not receive a response to either call.  I'm pretty close to
concluding that voice alert is next to useless in real life, because
(1) not many people use it, (2) use by unattended fixed (!) stations,
and (3) because of the problems inherent in RF communication -
sometimes things aren't set up exactly right or one person can hear
the other but not vise-versa.

Before I left, I sent an email out to my department explaining I was
going on vacation (as is procedure) and included something along the
lines of, "If you want to see where I am enjoying my vacation, you
can check out this link..." with a short explanation of APRS and a
link to some general APRS info on the web.  I also gave a link the
page I use to describe my car's installation.  I got some personal
email from several coworkers watching me on the trip (things like,
"How's Burlington?" and "You're in the middle of a flood zone!"), as
well as some inquiries into how to become a ham (from one coworker)
and how to get started in APRS (from another ham that works with
me).  A friend of mine also found it very interesting and the link I
sent her ("You can keep track of me on my way to visit you by
checking...") has caused her to not only begin studying for her Tech
exam, but also learn 5 WPM code so that she can use HF (I've been
trying to talk her into going ahead and taking her General exam while
she's at it).

I also did a short demo of ham radio which I mentioned here before at
an event I attended.  That was well received as well.  People are
interested in people that do weird things like track themselves in a
society where everyone's trying to avoid having the government track
them.  ;)

So I know that "tracking people's cars on the internet" is one of the
things that some don't particularly like to see used as a major use
of APRS, but if we get a new ham or two and another ham interested in
APRS, I'm not sure it was a bad use.  After all, it's okay to do ham
radio for things other than emergency services, such as simply having
fun and being able to say, "Look at the cool technology I'm using."
My answer to "why do you track your car," has been and will continue
to be "because I can!"  I don't need to talk about the unlikely use
of my vehicle in an emergency or public service event, I can talk
about simply enjoying sending stuff over the radio waves.  :)  Of
course I mention other uses of ham radio besides just "fun" stuff,
but the "fun" stuff is why many of us got involved initially and it
can still attract new hams!  (as I'm sure the emergency services
stuff does too; Different people want different things out of their
hobbies)

One long road trip with my APRS setup running and a few emails sent
by me has possibly gotten one ham to become active again in a new
area (for him) of ham radio and has encouraged two others to start
the process of becoming a ham.  Not bad for something "pointless"
like tracking the vehicle I use to commute to and from work.  :)

In summary, I'd encourage people to do "little" things like promoting
their hobby a little bit in appropriate ways.  You might be surprised
how well received it really is.  The only thing that will keep ham
radio alive is new hams coming into the hobby.  Even if APRS is only
a minor interest, or the new ham never sends out a single packet, it
will make it that much easier to argue that we need our spectrum.

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