[aprssig] APRS at Dayton

[Robert Bruninga]

The Good news:  Dayton has excellent APRS coverage potential for
Hamvention with existing stations and hardware.  Only new
hardware needed is an Igate that is simplex to the arena.

The Bad news:  A quick look on FINDU reveals that less than 10%
of the digis in and around Dayton are New-N compliant.  Without
New-N, it is impossible for users or anyone looking at FINDU to
tell what the local Dayton network supports:

> 30% lack any PHG antenna height info
> 80% don't show their path support "Wn" or "W11"?
> 20% still using RELAY and WIDE

Sorted by range from Hamvention:

TYPE CALL    HAAT DIS DIR Comments
---- ------- ---- --- --- ----------------------------------
DIGI W8GUC   160'  4  NE  No new-N, no path info, no Overlay
Home WA8ZWJ   40'  8  NW  no indication of W1-1 support
Home KA8C     20'  8  E   no indication of W1-1 support
Home N8QNM     ?   8  NW  no indication of W1-1 support
Home WA8VIW   80' 12  S   no indication of W1-1 support
DIGI KC8QBL-3  ?  19  SE  no PHG no New-N no path info no
overlay
DIGI WB8BLV  160' 19  SW  New-N with "S" overlay , W3
recommended
DIGI KC8KQE   40' 31  NE  home, no new-N, no info, no overlay
DIGI WA8SDF-1  ?  32  SW  no new-N no info, no recommends, no
W1-1?
DIGI KC9CJJ-3 40' 36  W   New-N recommends W3-3
DIGI KA8ZNY10 160' 40 SE  old W-R-T, no New-N no W1-1
 
Simple fixes for Dayton Hamvention:

1) Have all HOME stations support WIDE1-1 as an ALIAS. 
2) Have home digis show "W11" at start of their position txt.
3) Have W8GUC support only W1-1 during hamvention weekend and
keep its current "support" whether W# or W11 always updated in
its position text.
4) put correct Overlays on all digis and include W# or W11 in
texts

The nomencalture "W#" means for the digi to indicate the maximum
number of hops recommended in the area.  If that is 2 hops, then
put in "W2" if it is 3 hops, then "W3".  Only if it is unlimited
use "Wn".

The absence of any HIGH and wide area digis is ideal for a high
density situation like Hamvention, since it avoides the problem
of bringing in too much out-of-area QRM.  But this then requires
many home station or fill-in WIDE1-1 digis.  It appears to me
that two more home-stations or fill-in W1-1's are needed to the
SW and SE about 8 miles or so.

Is there anyone local to Dayton that will take on these
challenges, at least to contact all of the above stations and do
the simple changes to W1-1 support, and update position-texts
PHG's and W#'s so that the network is self-explanitory?

Thanks.
Bob, WB4APR

> -----Original Message-----
> From: aprssig-bounces at lists.tapr.org 
> [mailto:aprssig-bounces at lists.tapr.org] On Behalf Of Robert
Bruninga
> Sent: Wednesday, March 14, 2007 10:24 AM
> To: 'TAPR APRS Mailing List'
> Subject: [aprssig] APRS at Dayton
> 
> I hope to go to Dayton this year and hope to see lots of APRS
> activity.
> 
> I hope all travelers will set for VoiceAlert while enroute.
> 
> The operations of APRS in the center of Dayton can be greatly
> enhanced by just a few SYSOP settings at the major DIGI's in
the
> area.  With these remote-sysop settings, hundreds of APRS
> mobiles can be accomodated.
> See the web page:
> 
> http://eng.usna.navy.mil/~bruninga/aprs/dayton.txt
> 
> Do we have the Dayton SYSOPS on here?  Do they see this as a
> viable approach?
> Who can guarantee an Igate in simplex range of HARA arena?
> 
> Mobiles do *not* need to change their mobile settings enroute
> Dayton, assuming they are using the receomended New-N settings
> already (WIDE1-1,WIDE2-1 or 2-2).  That is the power of the
> New-N paradigm is that the local SYSOPS can make a few simle
> changes to accommodate these hundreds of users without
expecting
> the users to change anything.
> 
> Either 1) TURN OFF your tracker when parked,  or 2) Set packet
> rate to 30 minutes while parked.  At Dayton, it is nice to see
> parked vehicles on all the screens, but only at the low rate.
> 
> Since 52 will be useless, do we want to designate another
> simplex APRS Voice frequency in the immediate area?  Why not
the
> 445.925 alternate APRS channel?
> 
> Anything else?
> 
> Bob, Wb4APR
> 
> 
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