[aprssig] Coverage holes in OK?

[Earl Needham]

Between Amarillo and Tucumcari there is ONE digi, and I can't remember it's
"Title" just now.  However, finding a hole in that area is probably correct.

East of Amarillo, I sometimes get into the digis at Pampa or one of the
others north of I-40, but you have to be hill topping to do so.  Same thing
going across I-40 in Oklahoma, except the digis seem to be south of I-40.

I'd REALLY like somebody (besides me) to travel I-20 west from Fort Worth
and report what they find there.

Vy 7 3
Earl
KD5XB-11


On Fri, Jan 6, 2012 at 7:53 PM, Alex Carver <kf4lvz at yahoo.com> wrote:

>
>
>
>
> On 1/6/2012 2:34 PM, Alex Carver wrote:
>
> I had my D700 with me at 25 watts with a 3 minute beacon going out as
> WIDE1-1,WIDE-2-2 (covered all areas so that I didn't have to fiddle with
> the radio en-route).
> Hopefully that was WIDE2-2 and the WIDE-2-2 was a typo?
>
> Yeah, just a typo.  You'd know if it wasn't from the raw data, though. :)
>
> Looking at the map, there were some huge holes in Oklahoma.  I didn't
> exactly expect that given the flatness of OK.  I was picked up very well in
> Oklahoma City but didn't get digipeated or gated until I reached Amarillo,
> TX.  East of Oklahoma City there was another large hole between Oklahoma
> City and Ft. Smith, AR.
> >
> If you want an idea of coverage before doing such an extensive drive
>     (handy for telling the family where NOT to be concerned if they
>     don't see you moving), see http://tinyurl.com/APRSAct24 and
> http://tinyurl.com/APRSAct00 for APRS coverage maps.  You have to
>     look closely at the file dates to find the most recent and now that
>     I look at them, I need to restart the batch job for the new year.
>     But there's enough there to get the idea.
>
>
>
> >
> Note, I'm considering a hole as an area where I traveled 50 miles or more
> without a single gate or digipeat (digipeat being the D700 saying MY POS if
> it managed to hear its own packet).  All these areas were quiet both in the
> car and on APRS-IS given the track data.  Other than these hols coverage
> was pretty good even in remote places and small towns (like Alexander City,
> AL).  Coverage in NM, AZ, and CA most likely benefited from mountain top
> sites that could cover huge areas easily.
> >
> Well, not hearing a MY POS doesn't necessarily mean that you're in a
>     hole, but you're in an area where one of the following is true.
>
> a) No digipeater was within range or
> b) Digis in range didn't decode your transmissions or
> c) Your D700 didn't hear the digipeat or
> d) Your D700 didn't decode the digipeat.
>
>
> Actually e) The D700 was completely quiet during these periods with zero
> activity on the channel.  I had the display set up high on the dashboard so
> I could glance down to make sure the GPS indicator was blinking.  On the
> trip to FL my GPS
>  cable loosened so I wasn't sending anything from Barstow, CA all the way
> through Flagstaff, AZ when I discovered the loose cable.  I kept an eye on
> the GPS for the return trip.  I could also see any packet activity going on
> with the display up on the dash.  Most of those holes were completely dead
> zones without a single packet.
>
> Interestingly enough I did get one Voice Alert contact during the entire
> round trip, only one though.  It was a mobile traveling through southern
> Georgia on SR-580 while I was doing the same in the opposite direction.  We
> had a short conversation on 146.520 until we were out of simplex range.
> Never heard anything else during the trip.
>
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