[aprssig] whatever happened to....

[kc9umr at freqradio.com]

OK -

I worked the 100 Acre Wood Rally (www.100aw.org) down in Salem, MO this
weekend.  oftentimes, net control would ask how many vehicles have
entered/exited a stage, and more than once, we lost a vehicle either in
service, or in transit.

APRS seems like a logical tool to help aleviate this problem a bit...

since it is impossible to expect every entrant to have an APRS rig in
their car (or be licensed for that matter) and we already have radio
people at the start and finish lines....

IF the entrant's scorecards could be barcoded, they could be scanned on
the way IN to a stage and on the way OUT of a stage.

they could also be scanned IN to service and OUT of service.

With a GUI of some form that could display data received (tabulated....so
maybe in columns with respect to which callsign has checked in, and totals
for each station...  so under KC9UMR would be all cars checked into stage
X, and under K9FRT would be all cars checked OUT of stage X, with similar
arrangements for service and all other stages)

The only "issue" might be coming up with a single digi that could cover
the entire race area, though if one or two stations could digipeat for the
event, that might fix tat as well, since only STARTS FINISHES and SERVICE
need to be on the network....

at this point, it would probably be cut off from the APRS world, (most
stages are well away from APRS coverage anyway), but the main part is to
get the info from point A to point B....


> seems to me it would be entirely up to you as to whether or not it is
> useful.
>
> If the barcode scanner had an RS232 output and the bar code was long
> enough, you could print a complete APRS packet on the barcode and
> connect the scanner straight to a TNC.  Not sure if barcodes can be
> that long...
>
> A bit of glue logic on a microcontroller or a laptop could map some
> sort of code to APRS and assist with generating packets.
>
> Want to tell us about your application?
>
> -Jason
> kg4wsv
>
>
>
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