[aprssig] Field Day 2011 and APRS

[John Gorkos]

Bob, I'll drink just about any flavor of Kool-Aid you put in front of me, but 
this one tastes bad.

For my group, Field Day is an Emergency Operations preparedness test.  
Repeaters don't exist.  The local IGates don't exist.  Echolink doesn't exist.  
IRLP doesn't exist.  NOTHING "works" if it relies on any infrastructure other 
than the radio in front of me, and the radio in front of the guy I'm talking 
to.  APRS-IS, and indeed, the entire INTERNET doesn't exist, because our local 
infrastructure is degraded to the point where we can't access it.  In our 
scenarios, we're replicating either a cat4+ hurricane that has reduced a large 
swatch of Georgia to rubble, or our deployment to a post-earthquake area 
(Haiti, SoCal) or post Tsunami area.  There won't be an IGate, because there 
won't be an "I" to gate to.
Now, we made a concious decision not to do anything with APRS on HF, because 
we weren't able to dedicate a radio/antenna system from our field day site to a 
long-term tactical network.  Operating as a 4A station from a county park, we 
just didn't have the antenna space to dedicate to a station that wasn't going 
to generate very many Qs.

Did I demonstrate APRS to interested passers-by?  Yes.  Did we have a beacon, 
an object, and actively use APRS during FD?  Yes.  Did I demonstrate my D72, 
my D710, my AVMAP GPS, Xastir, aprs-alert.net, and talk about APRS-IS during 
field day?  Yes.  Is it complete,  troll-baiting BS that you posit that only 
"0.005% of APRS operators are into Field Day" based on logins to the CQ 
server?  Absolutely.  You're the one that says it's a tactical information 
system.  Don't get irritable when, in a tactical operations exercise, people 
use it that way and not as a global contact system.

John Gorkos
AB0OO

On Sunday, June 26, 2011 15:04:31 Bob Bruninga wrote:
> With 20,000 APRS operators in the USA and 2600 field Day sites, it is
> amazing that only 10 people appear to have operated APRS from their FD
> site or know how to call CQ.
> 
> The CQSRVR is not something you just log into once (for 12 h ours)... Doing
> that is like arriving at FD, picking a random frequency on 10 m and then
> making one transmission calling CQ FD and then sitting back for the next
> 12 hours to see who calls you.
> 
> Remember, if everyone is listening and no one is transmitting, then the
> band is DEAD.
> 
> Stations come and go.  Any new station to come on since you sent CQ will
> never have seen your CQ.  They dont know you are there.  You have to send
> a CQ FD message every 30 minutes to an  hour for people to see you...
> AFTER they happen to log on.
> 
> ANyway, we had a great time.  But I dont understand why only 0.005% of APRS
> operators are into Field Day.
> 
> Bob, Wb4APR
> 
> 
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