[aprssig] A/N game Football Tracking Underway! & APRN

[Bernard Van Haecke]

Hi,

This sounds like an excellent idea, especially given the impressive
distance travelled
by the runners (and hams).  This would be a perfect exercise to
test/practice APRN
during a large event.  There aren't that many events where hams are going over a
long distance and where tracking with APRS + visualizing what's
happening with SSTV
is both useful and fun!

By the way I was wondering if something interesting could be done with
APRS + ATV
too.  I think that geotagging a QSO (voice or image) with APRS
position packets (or
even other data packets) is very useful in general.

Unlike with APRN, APRS + ATV would require two different frequencies.
144.390 could
be used for position packets because everybody is listening to it already.

Packets could also include something like: "ATV EVENT! TUNE TO CH57 421.25" or
something like that to alert all hams around that they can see the ATV
transmission
on their TV by tuning to analog cable channel 57 (or 58, 59, 60) and
pointing their
antenna at the ATV transmitter (they get the position in the packets too, so
if the transmitter is ATV mobile or ATV portable, this will be even
more useful).

The very very advanced hams could use a rotor and track the mobile ATV station
automatically based on the position packets they receive (some easy programming
and interfacing would be required).  Since ATV is usually low power,
good aiming of
the receiver antenna might actually be very very useful.

Just an idea...  I hope to try out ATV in the coming weeks...

Bernard KI6TSF

On Fri, Dec 9, 2011 at 1:58 PM, Bob Bruninga <bruninga at usna.edu> wrote:
>> Uh, what exactly is being tracked?
>> They're not passing the ball _that_ far out of bounds, are they? ;-)
>
> Oops, sorry...
>
> The web page is http://aprs.org/football.html
>
> It fills in the background and then links to APRS.FI.
>
> I am kicking myself for not putting an SSTV camera in the van and letting
> people all over the world take a picture by sending an Email to the FBALL
> callsign, and then viewing it on APRN.
>
> See the current APRN concept:  http://www.chryseis.be/~bvh/starlabs/aprn/
>
> There you see how Bernard Van Haecke KI6TSF has really put together a great
> APRN system!  The idea of APRSN, is that you take a picture, send it via the
> local APRN voice repeater in your area, where it gets captured into the APRN
> network where your APRS position and comments are then attached to the
> caputed image, and immediately available for all the world to see... in
> SECONDS!  Imagine the first responder application..
>
> And now that you can buy SSTV cameras from Argent Data Systems for under $80
> bucks, compared to the old $500 Kenwood VCH1, maybne now is the time for
> SSTV integrated with APRS to come back alive!
>
> Bob, Wb4APR
>
>