[aprssig] No APRS in Louisville, KY

[Bob Bruninga]

> There are a couple of digis in the Louisville area.
> KF4ERV [is] an IGATE digi, 
> KY4KY-3 digi [is] just south of town.  
> Both support New-N...

I cant resist the temptation to kibitz...

> The largest APRS user in Louisville is our local 
> search and rescue team.  I'm not sure why it 
> hasn't caught on beyond them.

Easy answer.  SAR is focused on TRACKING, which skews the ham radio community into viewing APRS as only a tracking system and the value of a tracking system is NOT TO INDIVIDUALS.  I have heard this for 15 years.  Mmost hams have no interest in transmitting their positions.  No benefit to the sender...

But the original function of APRS that IS of value to all HAMS is the receipt and display of local real-time information of immediate use to the mobiel and the traveler.

I checked the above digis, and was pleased to confirm some of the New-N paradigm, and pleased to see the presence of the 146.70-/R voice repeater object.  BUT I can suggest some improvements to this object.

1) It is being transmitted from a UIview client with a 2 hop path and is therefore spaming lots of area far beyond the usable footprint of the repeater.  This appears is frustrating to mobiles.  But unavlidable when originated from a home station, since a separate direct or 1 hop path is not possible from the main station path in UIview.

2) It should use the T079 format for Tone.
3) It could include Weekly Net time (if avail)
4) It could include monthly Meeting time (if avail)

> one of my pet projects is to start building a 
> more cohesive APRS infrastructure in Kentucky...

And the way to do that is to make users more interested in receiving APRS by making sure there is valuable local and relevant information available to mobiles.  Anything happening on HAM radio anywhere in range should be actively promoted on the local APRS information channel.

Bob, WB4APR