[aprssig] Track of road trip

[Cap Pennell]

Great story and great results, Joel!  Thanks very much for the fine report!
Excellent to hear your _experience_ shows "certainly more than two hops -
even in remote areas is unnecessary" and the North American mobile digipath
(WIDE1-1,WIDE2-1) is working so well now.  We all still need to focus more
energy on "outreach" toward other APRS users and digi sysops (beyond "the
choir", the readers of APRSSIG) with this good news.

In North America, we're still only part-way through this major improvement
to the VHF network.  We can all help.  We can re-focus on getting it done
everywhere, and press on.  The VHF network will work so much better _for all
of us_ with everybody helping each other with modern settings.  It only
takes a few settings updates from each station to operate courteously in the
21st Century.

If there's a digi near you with a antique "N overlay" on it's map symbol,
keep talking to the sysops.  Maybe it can help to let them know that their
fine digi callsign will appear in _every_ packet if they simply update their
settings.  And with updated settings, they'll courteously start allowing
_the second_ hop of the "new" standard mobile digipath too.

If you see a packet containing RELAY or WIDE or TRACE or TRACEn-N, keep
talking to the operator.  Help them improve their digipath (and/or
transmission interval) settings.  They're not deliberately being
discourteous, they just don't know any better yet.

As usual, the problem is only _not enough_ communication, and the solution
is simply _more_ communication.
As Joel N7XUC's report reminds us, sharing is just plain fun too.
73, Cap KE6AFE

> -----Original Message-----
> From: aprssig-bounces at lists.tapr.org
> [mailto:aprssig-bounces at lists.tapr.org]On Behalf Of Joel Maslak
> Sent: Sunday, July 02, 2006 18:23 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.
<snip>