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--></style></head><body lang="EN-US" link="blue" vlink="purple"><div class="WordSection1"><p class="MsoNormal">There is a very high digi in East Central PA that has no TX audio!</p><p class="MsoNormal"> </p><p class="MsoNormal">
No one will know it if they don’t LISTEN to the channel. But for the balloon, we of course, listen to see what is going on, and all day, we heard these 0.5 sec carriers randomly on 144.39. I kept thinking it was one of the many laptops at the launch site, or a tracker with no audio…</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p><p class="MsoNormal">But it soon became apparent that it was a digi, since it was with us all day everywhere! It was FULL quieting east of Lancaster and kinda was not heard once we crossed into Maryland. See the area we were in by checking the balloon track of W3ADO-11.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p><p class="MsoNormal">Someone needs to fix this. Unless you listen, you won’t notice. You TX a BCON and you SEE a SIGNAL strength report on 144.39 immediately… but there is no audio! Just carrier.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p><p class="MsoNormal">I only saw one digi on the map, KB3RNL-1 (so clearly that wasn’t it, or I wouldn’t see it) but I pinged it anyway and never got a response. I was only 6 miles away with 50W.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p><p class="MsoNormal">So this area of PA may have some real problems. One digi that cannot hear, and another that cannot be heard by anyone, though it lights up everyone’s signal strength bars over hundreds of square miles…</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p><p class="MsoNormal">All the chase folks could not see each other except when we were in 3 mile direct range because of this broken digi problem…</p><p class="MsoNormal"> </p><p class="MsoNormal">
Packets came into APRS-IS via local IGates DIRECT at low altitudes: W3HZU, N3WXO-5 and N3FCX.</p><p class="MsoNormal">There were others at higher altitudes but they could be much farther away…</p><p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Go get em!</p><p class="MsoNormal"> </p><p class="MsoNormal">Bob, WB4aPR</p><p class="MsoNormal"> </p></div></body></html>