<html><body><div style="color:#000; background-color:#fff; font-family:Courier New, courier, monaco, monospace, sans-serif;font-size:13px"><div><span></span></div><div dir="ltr">Stephen, have you ever used Mike Berg's FreeTrak-16 to do the encoding?</div><div dir="ltr"><br></div><div dir="ltr"><a id="yui_3_16_0_1_1440901517761_91967" href="http://www.ringolake.com/pic_proj/MFSK16/mfsk_main.html">http://www.ringolake.com/pic_proj/MFSK16/mfsk_main.html</a></div><div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1440901517761_91987" dir="ltr"><br></div><div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1440901517761_92033" dir="ltr">I was curious if you had, and how well it worked. I have the PCB and most of the parts, but haven't put it all together yet.</div><div dir="ltr"><br></div><div dir="ltr">I would also be interested in any links to the current loop antenna you are using.</div><div dir="ltr"><br></div><div dir="ltr">Max KG4PID<br> </div><div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1440901517761_92031" style="font-family: Courier New, courier, monaco, monospace, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"> <div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1440901517761_92030" style="font-family: HelveticaNeue, Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, Arial, Lucida Grande, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;"> <div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1440901517761_92029" dir="ltr"> <hr size="1" id="yui_3_16_0_1_1440901517761_92032"> <font id="yui_3_16_0_1_1440901517761_92028" face="Arial" size="2"> <b><span style="font-weight: bold;">From:</span></b> Stephen H. Smith via aprssig <aprssig@tapr.org><br> <b><span style="font-weight: bold;">To:</span></b> TAPR APRS Mailing List <aprssig@tapr.org> <br> <b><span style="font-weight: bold;">Sent:</span></b> Sunday, August 30, 2015 11:26 PM<br> <b><span style="font-weight: bold;">Subject:</span></b> [aprssig] This Year's Cross-Country Road Trip With HF APRS<br> </font> </div> <div class="y_msg_container" id="yui_3_16_0_1_1440901517761_92111"><br>This year, as usual, I made the annual cross-country road trip from central <br>Michigan to Los Angeles, Cal, with the obligatory stop in Colorado for the <br>Evergreen Jazz Festival at the end of July. Just before the trip, I <br>upgraded my homebrew 30M magloop to a new third-generation design. I increased <br>the loop circumference from 10' (3 meters) to 20' (6 meters; i.e. from a <br>diameter of 3.2 feet (.93 meters) to 6.4 feet (1.9 meters) and changed the <br>scheme for resonating the loop.<br><br>According to the KI6GD magloop calculator, I boosted the efficiency from about <br>35% of a full-size dipole to 68%; i.e. barely 1 dB down from a dipole. I set <br>my home station Kenwood TS-50 to do the APRS Messenger dual-mode alternate <br>beaconing on MFSK16 and AX.25 packet APRS before I left. [The latest revision <br>of APRS Messenger now makes it trivially simple to beacon alternately on the <br>two modes using the UZ7HO Soundmodem for the packet side.]<br><br>This has been an absolutely lousy ratty solar max compared to the solar max <br>around 2001-2004, where I routinely carried out perfect SSTV two-ways from the <br>car to Japan, Australia, New Zealand & South America. During the solar minimum <br>4-6 years ago, I routinely carried out APRS Messenger PSK63 QSOs from the car <br>to almost anywhere in the US 18 hours a day or more. I could make contacts from <br>the mobile in downtown Los Angeles or Las Vegas to stations in Kentucky and <br>Thunder Bay, Ontario pretty much any time I wanted.<br><br>This summer, the absolutely non-stop sequence of solar explosions, coronal <br>mass ejections, geo-magnetic disturbances, high solar "A" and "K" indices, and <br>exceptionally flaky sun spot behavior combined to render this positively the <br>worst summer I have ever experienced for HF mobile operation in over 25 years <br>of making this trip.<br><br>Usually, I run mobile live SSTV (from the WA8LMF "Mobile SSTV LiveCAM" <br>dash-mounted camera) on 20 and 15 meters on this summer trip, especially as I <br>cross the scenic parts of Colorado and Utah. In between SSTV sessions, I <br>beacon constantly on 30M APRS with both the APRS Messenger MFSK16 mode, and on <br>classic AX.25 packet APRS. During the the 6300-mile (10,000 KM) trip, I copied <br>exactly ONE SSTV image on 20 meters.<br><br>The 30M band sounded totally dead most of the time. I barely copied ANY AX.25 <br>APRS at all, -BUT- the MFSK16 mode in APRS Messenger was absolutely amazing. <br>For the first 1000-1200 miles (1600-1900 KM) up to western Colorado, I was <br>copying my 50-watt home station transmissions from the magloop 18-20 hours a <br>day, even when the band otherwise sounded completely dead with no AX.25 signals <br>whatsoever.<br><br>Even on the west coast in Los Angeles and the San Francisco Bay area, and in <br>the interior of Nevada, I was copying my home station 8-12 hours a day most of <br>the time, again on an otherwise completely dead band. This is a distance of <br>around 2000 miles (3200 KM) under absolutely rotten propagation conditions. <br>Repeated checks at WiFi hotspots from my mobile laptop confirmed that about <br>half the packets from my mobile, that reached the Internet, were being igated <br>by my own home station in Michigan.<br><br>Once again, this has demonstrated the incredible superiority of MFSK16 over <br>conventional AX.25 packet on HF if you want to be seen from the remotest places.<br><br>___________________________________________________________________<br><br>--<br><br>Stephen H. Smith wa8lmf (at) aol.com<br>Skype: WA8LMF<br>EchoLink: Node # 14400 [Think bottom of the 2-meter band]<br>Home Page: <a href="http://wa8lmf.net/" target="_blank">http://wa8lmf.net</a><br><br>Live Off-The-Air APRS Activity Maps<br> <<a href="http://wa8lmf.net/map" target="_blank">http://wa8lmf.net/map</a>><br><br>Long-Range APRS on 30 Meters HF<br> <<a href="http://wa8lmf.net/aprs/HF_APRS_Notes.htm" target="_blank">http://wa8lmf.net/aprs/HF_APRS_Notes.htm</a>><br><br>_______________________________________________<br>aprssig mailing list<br><a href="mailto:aprssig@tapr.org" ymailto="mailto:aprssig@tapr.org">aprssig@tapr.org</a><br><a href="http://www.tapr.org/mailman/listinfo/aprssig" target="_blank">http://www.tapr.org/mailman/listinfo/aprssig</a><br><br><br></div> </div> </div> </div></body></html>