[aprssig] Appalachain Golden Packet for 2020 (expansion)

[Robert Bruninga]

We finished the Appalachian Golden Packet (ATGP) event this past weekend
with 15 hops to Maine and 14 hops back to Georgia.

We think we can increase throughput 20x or more for 2020 by totally
changing our beacon plan, messaging plan and getting the 2X benefit of
9600 baud.

This means we would like to see extension of the network perpendicular to
the chain such as these mountains:
Huntsville AL,  Lookout Mountain TN, Stone Mountain GA, Ridge South of
Morganton NC, etc.  And so forth up to main

Desired locations are high places on the order of a hundred miles away
from the ATGP backbone stations that can see one of the ATGP stations.
This allows for a much bigger network during the event but still keeping
paths linear and avoiding the NxN explosion of packets.

We need to begin to find people to locate and man these additional sites.
Please do not waste time on a mountain idea unless it can really be very
far and perpendicular from the ATGP chain and always best if it is across
valleys.  Do path-tracing homework first before just throwing out ideas.
You can see the ATGP chain on this page:
http://aprs.org/at-golden-packet.html

Bob, WB4APR