[aprssig] West Virginia Digipeater Coverage (US-19 and Interstate 79)

Mon Jul 13 22:25:20 EDT 2009

Thanks Lynn,

Those charts really do tell the story very well.  Unfortunately there
isn't much around the US 19 - I-79 intersection so the chances of
finding a club/individual that would be interested in putting up a
nice tall digi would probably be difficult.

Altho I would be very interested in getting something up and running
to improve the coverage along this route as I do travel it frequently
and Imagine many other hams do as well because it is the main route
between southern and northern WV.

If there is anyone else on the list that is also interested in
improving the APRS coverage at any point along US19 or I79 I would
appreciate if they speak up and maybe we can work together to get
something on the air to provide this much needed coverage.

Thanks,
Josh Smith
KD8HRX
email/jabber:  juicewvu at gmail.com
phone:  304.237.9369(c)

On Mon, Jul 13, 2009 at 9:56 PM, Lynn W. Deffenbaugh
(Mr)<ldeffenb at homeside.to> wrote:
> Well, after writing the previous e-mail, I decided my curiosity was perked
> enough to generate a few charts of that area for the 9th through the 12th
> and include a 2 week coverage diagram as well (2+ hours in the making).  You
> can see the results at
>
> http://ldeffenb.dnsalias.net.nyud.net/Tracking/I75I77US19/*  (Ignore the
> I75, they should all be I79).
>
> The 2 week coverage chart shows it all.  Look at
>
> http://ldeffenb.dnsalias.net.nyud.net/Tracking/I75I77US19/Act-Jun%2029%2016.00.00%202009-2009-07-12T24.00-I75I77US19(3)-8.png
>
> or if you want higher resolution to zoom in on an pan around, use
>
> http://ldeffenb.dnsalias.net.nyud.net/Tracking/I75I77US19/Act-Jun%2029%2016.00.00%202009-2009-07-12T24.00-I75I77US19(3)-9.png
>
> You can see some airplane tracks across the north and south ends and one
> that flies from center south towards the NE along I-81.  There seems to be
> good coverage and traffic using that coverage along I-89, and some coverage
> north on I-77 from I-81, but as you get closer to the south end of the
> I-64/I-77 merge, it pretty well dries up.  This lack of coverage goes all up
> along US 19 and all along I-79 until you get to Morgantown.  There's a patch
> of coverage in Charleston but nothing in any direction from there until you
> get North to Parkersberg where you pick up decent coverage toward the East
> and some ways North.  All in all, there's not much to go on up there.  I
> suspect not even 50 watts will get you anywhere.
>
> Seems like you need to look up a ham club near the intersection of I-79 and
> US 19 and get something going.  One good tall digi there could probably go a
> long way
>
> If you play with the maps at APRS.FI and drag/zoom to see that area plus a
> bit and then toggle on the coverage circles (third icon down on the right
> edge, the one with the red and blue circles), you'll also see that there's
> no coverage in the area of interest.
>
> Thanks for the excuse to play with my tools to see what's up!  Happy
> APRSing!
>
> Lynn (D) - KJ4ERJ - AT&T Tilt on APRSISCE for Windows Mobile as KJ4ERJ-12
>
> Josh Smith wrote:
>>
>> Lynn,
>> I apologize for not providing the necessary information that yes I was
>> traveling as KD8HRX-2.  I'm pretty new to this and still learning the
>> ropes.
>>
>> I am questioning about my travel on the 12th of July.  As part of my
>> journey from Leesville, LA to Morgantown, WV I traveled north from
>> Beckley, WV on US-19 on to Interstate 79 into Morgantown and APRS
>> coverage during that leg of the trip seemed very sparse.
>>
>> Thanks for providing the links to your visualizations.  They look like
>> they will help me answer my questions.  I travel that route from
>> Morgantown to Beckley fairly often and was curious as to weather there
>> were digis along the route and they just weren't able to hear my
>> (tiny??) 5 watt APRS beacon or if there just is not much APRS coverage
>> in the are
>>
>> Again, thanks for the advice and links.
>>
>> Thanks,
>> Josh Smith
>> KD8HRX
>> email/jabber:  juicewvu at gmail.com
>> phone:  304.237.9369(c)
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> On Mon, Jul 13, 2009 at 11:55 AM, Lynn W. Deffenbaugh
>> (Mr)<ldeffenb at homeside.to> wrote:
>>
>>>
>>> Greetings Josh,
>>>
>>> First, it would help if you specified actual tracking callsign (including
>>> SSID) and date/time range that you were traveling.  It would save us
>>> guessing that it was actually KD8HRX-2 that was mobile.  You can see your
>>> APRS activity including what Digi/Igates you were using at:
>>>
>>> http://ldeffenb.dnsalias.net.nyud.net/Tracking/KD8HRX-2/*
>>>
>>> (Larger final dash number are higher resolution, zoom in for details.
>>>  The
>>> ...D-nn focuses on source locations and doesn't show all Digi/Igates).
>>>  (Note that some files are HUGE (final column is file size) and my
>>> bandwidth
>>> is limited.  Check the lower zoom levels first before pulling the higher
>>> resolution plots).
>>>
>>> Are you questioning coverage on the 9th:
>>>
>>>
>>> http://ldeffenb.dnsalias.net.nyud.net/Tracking/KD8HRX-2/KD8HRX-2-2009-07-09T00.00-2009-07-09T24.00-D-10.png
>>>
>>> or the 12th?
>>>
>>>
>>> http://ldeffenb.dnsalias.net.nyud.net/Tracking/KD8HRX-2/KD8HRX-2-2009-07-12T00.00-2009-07-12T24.00-D-12.png
>>>
>>> It looks like you did some traveling on the 9th with some gaps in either
>>> beaconing or coverage.  On the 10th, it appears that coverage was good.
>>>  You
>>> didn't move on the 11th (according to APRS anyway).  On the 12th, it
>>> looks
>>> like you covered some ground but didn't get many hits in the middle.  You
>>> didn't go very far today, July 13,
>>>
>>>
>>> http://ldeffenb.dnsalias.net.nyud.net/Tracking/KD8HRX-2/KD8HRX-2-2009-07-13T00.00-2009-07-13T24.00-D-18.png)
>>>
>>> but your packets sure put on some miles!
>>>
>>>
>>> http://ldeffenb.dnsalias.net.nyud.net/Tracking/KD8HRX-2/KD8HRX-2-2009-07-13T00.00-2009-07-13T24.00-7.png
>>>
>>> If you (or anyone else) are/is interested in APRS activity around the
>>> country, you can see daily plots of various regions at:
>>>
>>> http://ldeffenb.dnsalias.net.nyud.net/Tracking/act24/*
>>>
>>> In your case, the the NE plots for the 10, 11, and 12 would cover you.
>>>  I'll
>>> leave it to you to figure out exactly where you need to look, but here's
>>> the
>>> key to the file names (most recent at the bottom).
>>>
>>> USA-NE/NW/SE/SW are respective quadrants of the continental US.
>>> FLORIDA is obvious, PALMBAY is my local area.
>>>
>>> (0) is all APRS traffic, mobiles, Digis, and IGates
>>> (1) is only direct IGate traffic (not provided for all ares)
>>> (2) is Digi/Igate traffic only, no originating stations
>>> (3) is Mobile/Digi/IGate positions, but no connecting lines
>>> (Small squares are mobiles, small circles are Digi, larger circles are
>>> IGates)
>>> (4) is (3) with smaller green dots for Digi/Igates
>>> (Small red squares are mobile, small green are Digi, larger green are
>>> IGates)
>>>
>>> The final dash number is a zoom factor compliments of
>>> http://OpenStreetMap.org.
>>>
>>> If you look at enough of these graphs, you'll begin to see where coverage
>>> exists and where it is lacking.  Remember, these are for 24 hours as
>>> indicated in their file name (Eastern Time).  If you want to see a
>>> composite
>>> of the entire USA over the past 2 weeks, check out the following URL.  I
>>> don't do the regions due to compute requirements.  However, you can zoom
>>> in
>>> on the resulting picture and scroll around.  The detail isn't half bad.
>>>
>>> http://ldeffenb.dnsalias.net.nyud.net/Tracking/act00/*USA*
>>>
>>> Feel free to use these images however you wish, but republish the IMAGE,
>>> not
>>> the LINK!  My outbound bandwidth can handle a few interested people
>>> browsing, but I'd rather not be SlashDotted
>>> (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slashdot_effect).
>>>
>>> If you would like to see a 2 week view of some certain area, drop me the
>>> N,
>>> E, S, W bounding rectangle coordinates along with an identifying area
>>> name
>>> and I'll see if I can generate detailed plots for that region.  My
>>> database
>>> is limited to North America only, though!
>>>
>>> Lynn (D) - KJ4ERJ - APRS Infrastructure Visualization
>>>
>>>
>>> Josh Smith wrote:
>>>
>>>>
>>>> Everyone,
>>>> Over the weekend I was traveling north from Beckley, WV to Morgantown,
>>>> WV on US route 19 and interstate 79 and was fairly amazed to find that
>>>> there was little to no digipeater coverage of the area (grant it i was
>>>> using my th-d7a(g) and 5 watts of TX power) but at least for people in
>>>> the state this is a fairly highly utilized route.  Can someone confirm
>>>> the poor coverage of these highways?  I'm curious if the coverage is
>>>> that bad or if it was just a product of my low transmit power.
>>>>
>>>> Thanks,
>>>> Josh Smith
>>>> KD8HRX
>>>> email/jabber:  juicewvu at gmail.com
>>>> phone:  304.237.9369(c)
>>>>
>>>> _______________________________________________
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>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
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>>
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