[aprssig] Appalacian TRail and ham radio

[Bob Bruninga]

TO THE APRS SIG:

There is a new move afoot to survey the Appalachian Trail for Ham Radio.

The idea I want to persue is to make a trip-tic or mapquest kind of overlay on the AT map to show green, yellow and red overlays along the trail showing where APRS tracking is good, fair and poor.

This would be calibrated to a 5w HT using a stock antenna, or 1W HT using a good full size antenna while walking the AT.

ALso, the map will plot all of those Voice Repeaters that should be accessible.  In this case, with a 1W HT and stock antenna but held to the face in normal operating style.  These voice repeaters will show where their PHG circle intersects the trail.

The final step is to make sure that those regularly monitoed and mainly receommended voice repeaters are included in the APRS local Frequency Object for that area, so the AT traveler can SEE on his radio, what freq to use.

I have  had a web page up on this for many years, but it is no longer accessible to the public due to a new firewall at work.  Ill try to remember to move it over to APRS.ORG... after seasons travels.

But I was recently contacted by a group attempting to survey the trail (peak-2-peak at yahoogroups.com)(for voice) and so why not also for APRS?

And maybe some of you may go hiking over the holidays, so why not carry your APRS radio.

HERE IS MY RECOMMENDATION: so that we get a nice data base with the least effort and the most fun:

1) SET MYCALL TO "ATRAIL" (only on the trail)
2) SET your own call in your status text
3) SET rate to 3 minutes
4) SET PATH to WIDE1-1,WIDE2-1
5) Enjoy all the hiking you want ON THE AT

No matter how many of us do this, every dot will show accessibility, and although the "track" will pingpoing, the summation of DOTS will plot the accessible trail!

It is imperative that the MYCALL of "ATRAIL" only be used when actually on the trail to avoid dots all over the place, going to and from the trail.

Does anywone know if FINDU would retain all of these points? and for how long?

Bob, WB4APR