[aprssig] APRS -- Chicago to Mackinac Island sailboat race

[Robert Bruninga]

> ...I have raced our sailboat in five open ocean...races. 
> I set up WinAPRS to transmit our position once an hour....

You are welcome to transmit a moving position report more often
when underway, so that a lost packet does not have as much of an
impact.  At the Naval Academy, we used 10 minutes per boat, but
we had our own frequency.  I woiuld think the APRS 10 MHz freq
could handle 30 minutes per boat while underway easily.
entire race. At any time my wife wants to check on how we are 

> Now a couple of times a plot was not received due to poor 
> propagation... So my XYL simply selected NEW Message...
> And queried "How are things going?" ..[when] I was not 
> available to answer BUT she got a reply that gave her our 
> position at that instant. 

I think that would be the APRS "directed Query" that would
trigger the position update.  Or does WinAPRS have the ability
to trigger a posit in response to a message too?  Just trying to
clarify how that worked.

Thanks
Bob
WB4APR