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<body class='hmmessage'><div dir='ltr'>Greetings, all.<br><br>I just had an interesting voyage, riding the
Amtrak #27 "Empire Builder" from Chicago to Washington state, with my
APRS gear with me. You can look up the track on aprs.fi (KA2DDO-9,
between August 22nd and 24th). I saved a screenshot of the run on my website as well. <a href="http://www.ka2ddo.org/ka2ddo/traintracks22-24Aug.png">http://www.ka2ddo.org/ka2ddo/traintracks22-24Aug.png</a><br><br>I noticed several things on the trip:<br><br>1.
There are huge spans with no digipeater/I-gate coverage at all along
the route. In the screenshot, note the places where I was able to
report position over Internet connectivity but not by 2m radio (obvious
because of no nearby digi's).<br><br>2. The coverage for AT&T
cellular service was better than for 2m APRS (I could maintain an
APRS-IS connection over a wireless hotspot in places where I couldn't
hit a digi), but still had holes.<br><br>3. Don't use adhesive tape to stick a twin-lead J-pole to the window; it won't hold but will leave a glue residue behind. :-)<br><br>4.
I found a few more bugs in my YAAC program along the way regarding
mobile operation, and have been fixing them (next build due out this
week).<br><br>5. It was fun, being able to work the rig safely without having to worry about driving.<br><br>Andrew Pavlin, KA2DDO </div></body>
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