[aprssig] Golden Packet SUCCESS!

[John Ronan]

On 22/07/14 20:24, Robert Bruninga wrote:
> 20 July 2014 - The Golden Packet Claimed!
Wahey, excellent, good job.

Regards
John
EI7IG

> After 6 annual attempts, several dozen hams completed a 2000 mile ad-hoc
> packet link along the Appalachian Trail from Maine to Georgia and are ready
> to claim the Golden Packet award.  The award was proposed in the early 1980’s
> by AMRAD, the early pioneers of AX.25 packet in the US to recognize the
> first cross-county packet.  But this idea was soon forgotten as long-haul
> VHF RF links fell out of use when HF, then wormholes, and then internet
> links began to appear.  By 1995 the APRS-IS (Internet System pioneered by
> Steve Dimse and the Sproul brothers) could link every RF packet on the
> planet via the nearest IGate.  By 2004 with over 20,000 users on the
> saturated national 144.39 MHz frequency, the RF packet paths were reduced to
> 2 hops or less to cover the local area with the remainder captured into the
> APRS-IS for worldwide distribution.
>
> But, to demonstrate long haul emergency ad-hoc use of APRS communication, in
> 2009, this Golden-Packet group began an annual event on the 3rd weekend in
> July to attempt an end-to-end 14 hop communication link from Maine to
> Georgia on a dedicated frequency (not the congested 144.39 MHz).  Besides,
> after being ignored at Field Day for nearly 2 decades, APRS was looking for
> a new challenge and our own day in the field.
>
> Each year there was always one break in the chain (me included!), and
> certainly plenty of thunderstorms somewhere along the route.  But on 20 July
> 2014, the stars aligned and Tim, KA1YBS climbed to the top of the 5267' Mt
> Katahdin in Maine with his APRS HT and was able to exchange APRS packets
> with N4AZR, Glenn parked on a fire road on Springer Mountain in Georgia via
> 14 other temporary APRS stations on mountain tops the full length of the
> Appalachian Trail.
>
> See details of the whole event: http://aprs.org/at-golden-packet.html
>
> There is no reason other areas of the country cannot also do this APRS field
> event along their own local long distance trails (The Continental Divide,
> Pacific Coast Trail, Lewis and Clark trails or any of the other 50,000 miles
> of linear trails in the US.)
>
> Bob Bruninga, WB4APR
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