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<DIV><SPAN class=249412004-05032006><FONT face=Arial
color=#0000ff>Steve,</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=249412004-05032006><FONT face=Arial
color=#0000ff></FONT></SPAN> </DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=249412004-05032006><FONT face=Arial color=#0000ff>I think you
are not reading the manual correctly. The group code refers to messages
that the radio will receive and display, it does not "filter" the received
stations in the station list. All received stations will still be entered
into the list for every "good" signal that radio hears.</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=249412004-05032006><FONT face=Arial
color=#0000ff></FONT></SPAN> </DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=249412004-05032006><FONT face=Arial color=#0000ff>I am not sure
how to filter that listing to just your SAR teams other than going to a
different frequency. Of course that will work giving you a "private" APRS
system but at the expense of not being able to utilize the existing APRS
infrastructure of your existing APRS Network and digi's. You would
have to install temporary digis in your search areas. That would make
things much more complicated.</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=249412004-05032006><FONT face=Arial
color=#0000ff></FONT></SPAN> </DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=249412004-05032006><FONT face=Arial color=#0000ff>Keep in mind,
that if your teams use a mapping GPS like the Garmin V, then the stations can be
plotted at the real time location on everyone's GPS map. You can then set
the scale so that you can see the position of each SAR team on the GPS topo or
street map. You can also measure the distance and direction of each of the
other teams from your location. Not all GPS's have this capability of
plotting the stations the Kenwood APRS radio hears on a real time map so you
will have to check the capability of the GPS units that are being
utilized. On the Garmin units, the heard stations are plotted as Waypoints
and only the position of the last heard position is shown on the GPS
screen.</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=249412004-05032006><FONT face=Arial
color=#0000ff></FONT></SPAN> </DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=249412004-05032006><FONT face=Arial color=#0000ff>Also by using
tactical calls, like TEAM1, TEAM2, etc, it will make it easy to find these
plotted waypoints in the Waypoint list of the GPS since they will all be grouped
together.</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=249412004-05032006><FONT face=Arial
color=#0000ff></FONT></SPAN> </DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=249412004-05032006><FONT face=Arial color=#0000ff>So, what you
want to accomplish can be done quite easily but on the GPS instead of the
radio. You can control the distance of stations you want plotted on the
GPS as Waypoints by specifying a distance of say 10 miles in your Kenwood radio,
then only the stations it hears that are within 10 miles of that radio will be
sent to the GPS for plotting. </FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=249412004-05032006><FONT face=Arial
color=#0000ff></FONT></SPAN> </DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=249412004-05032006><FONT face=Arial color=#0000ff>Also keep in
mind that the APRS program that is run in Base Camp is the important one that
needs to show the location of each team so the IC can get a better feel for
where his teams are located. The teams can then be told to move to other
positions via radio communications. I don't think that each team being
able to know exactly where the other teams are located is very important during
a search since it will distract the searcher from his search duties which is
what he is really out in the field for. My idea is just to put a tracker
into each of the SAR team's backpack and let the SAR teams perform their normal
search duties. The main person should be in SAR Base with a real time APRS
computer program running and zoomed into just the search area. That way
the other distant APRS station really do not deter from you
mission.</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=249412004-05032006><FONT face=Arial
color=#0000ff></FONT></SPAN> </DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=249412004-05032006><FONT face=Arial color=#0000ff>Please keep
me informed as to how your group makes out in utilizing these trackers during
your SAR activities. This to me is one of the few "real" uses for APRS and
trackers. This was the reason I first got into APRS. Curt and I will
be giving a presentation at our WA SAR Conference in mid May on the Integration
of APRS into SAR Activities, so any info you can provide to us would be
appreciated. It will be a Power Point presentation, so if you have any
good digital pictures or Power Point slide, they would be
appreciated.</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=249412004-05032006></SPAN> </DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=249412004-05032006></SPAN><SPAN class=249412004-05032006><FONT
face=Arial color=#0000ff>Thanks and good luck,</DIV>
<DIV>
<P><FONT size=2>Herb, KB7UVC<BR>NW APRS Group, West Sound Coordinator<BR>Our WEB
Site: <A href="http://www.nwaprs.info/"
target=_blank>http://www.nwaprs.info</A><BR><BR> </FONT>
</FONT></SPAN><SPAN class=249412004-05032006></P></DIV></SPAN>
<BLOCKQUOTE dir=ltr
style="PADDING-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; BORDER-LEFT: #0000ff 2px solid; MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px">
<DIV class=OutlookMessageHeader><FONT face="Times New Roman"
size=2>-----Original Message-----<BR><B>From:</B>
aprssig-bounces@lists.tapr.org [mailto:aprssig-bounces@lists.tapr.org]<B>On
Behalf Of</B> Steve Sobodos<BR><B>Sent:</B> Saturday, March 04, 2006 5:46
PM<BR><B>To:</B> aprssig@lists.tapr.org<BR><B>Subject:</B> [aprssig] TH-D7 and
Group Code<BR><BR></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2><FONT face=Arial size=2>
<P align=left>I plan on using the D7's in search and rescue. I thought that
putting SPCL in the group code (Unprotocol), the D7 would only "Hear" the
other stations with the same code. I quote from the manual :"Enter “SPCL”. You
will receive only APRS packets that include SPCL as a Group Code."</P>
<P align=left>The use in SAR is that the teams can see how close and what
direction the other teams are. The problem in Southern California is that
there are very many other stations and the list in the D7 gets so long it
becomes quite a pain to find the other stations in the list. I set up a couple
of D7's with the Group Code of SPCL but the D7 still hears everybody. </P>
<P align=left>What am I doing wrong? Is there another way to filter the D7
beacons?</P>
<P align=left>The Group Code does me no good in UI-View as it seems to not be
supported as a filter. I end using the callsign in the exclusions list in the
form "!TEAM*" to only include calls that start with TEAM.</P>
<P align=left> </P>
<P align=left> </P></FONT></FONT></DIV></BLOCKQUOTE></BODY></HTML>