[aprssig] Local info works!

[Bob Burns W9RXR]

Quoting Robert Bruninga <bruninga at usna.edu>:

> Same for local info. So many local areas just have not gotten off  
> their butts to put out the info.

Bob, I have a positive story about local info to relate:

This past Sunday evening, I drove from southwestern Michigan to my  
home near Indianapolis. A large portion of the route was on I-65.

About the time I turned south on I-65, I noticed a repeater object  
appear on the screen of my Kenwood TM-D710. The object was for the  
146.940 repeater in Kankakee, Illinois. I also noticed a hamfest  
object, HFEST-18p, that was located to my southwest.

I used the TUNE feature of the D710 to tune my radio to the 146.940  
repeater and put out my callsign. N9IO came back to me and pointed out  
that he had noticed my position beacon on his APRS screen before I  
keyed up the repeater. We chatted for a few minutes about APRS and the  
usefulness of repeater and hamfest objects. The hamfest, by the way,  
is coming up this weekend in Peotone, Illinois, near Kankakee.

So, the moral of this story is that APRS provided me with information  
about a repeater that was in range of my mobile and provided me with  
information about an upcoming hamfest. Either piece of information  
would have been hard to obtain while mobile without APRS. Local info  
objects work!

Bob...