<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8"></head><body>Sorry about the hassles from the unfriendly email service provider, but the other one is even more unfriendly (I had to quit using outlook.com entirely with APRS-SIG).<div><br></div><div>Back on topic:</div><div><br></div><div>I tried extracting data from RFinder. It would indeed let me extract data, but only after it had already decided what repeaters were appropriate for me to use, apparently using a heuristic assuming my station was not moving (well, I wasn't moving and had turned off GPS access in my phone at the time, so they might have better heuristics I don't know about). And the data format they provided did not include the positions of the repeater towers (which they obviously know, since they can plot them on a map); the export file only provided city, state, and country, and the state and country were wrong in some cases. For example, the Dstar repeaters co-located with analog repeaters with the same callsign (K3PDR) were identified as being in Prince Edward Island, Canada, rather than Pennsylvania, United States. </div><div><br></div><div>In any case, the exported data doesn't provide enough information for my application to do its own heuristics to suggest a best repeater based on local station motion (though in this case, the limitation may be inherited from RFinder being backwards-compatible with the old TravelPlus for Repeaters Windows program).</div><div><br></div><div>So I'm going to continue my development based on only APRS data, but not prohibiting future use of other data sources if they can actually be useful.</div><div><br></div><div>Regarding possible future improvements in the APRS Repeater Object, reporting the coverage range (which a few sites do) and/or antenna height above ground might be useful to better decide which repeaters might be most useful. Unfortunately, the potentially most useful information isn't in any data source: "Is this repeater monitored 24/7?" Finding an ideally-located repeater with no one listening isn't very useful. Any chance that we could get the Object transmitter to know how long since the last time someone successfully relayed through the voice repeater (i.e., proper PL and more than a ker-chunk)? :-)</div><div><br></div><div>Andrew, KA2DDO</div><br><br>-------- Original message --------<br>From: Matthew Chambers <mchambers@showmeham.info> <br>Date: 11/29/17 17:48 (GMT-05:00) <br>To: TAPR APRS Mailing List <aprssig@tapr.org> <br>Subject: Re: [aprssig] Ham Radio MOBILE Traveler PL-FIND device? <br><br>Ok, I have no idea what’s going on but someone on this thread has something in their email that keeps dragging this whole thread into my spam box? <div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">And I can see some of the emails on my phone that aren’t showing up in my laptop email client, to reply to one of those, the repeater book app can control some radios through bluetooth serial connection! More radios are coming out with bluetooth audio and serial capabilities so we’ll see that functionality expand. </div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">And on the PL tone usage, PL tone usage is now required in Missouri for new or changes to coordinated systems. There is a map with strongly recommended PL tones (or DCS, CC, NAC, YSF) based on region of the state and surrounding states for minimum interference. Not all repeaters but most appear to be following the recommendations. That makes it a bit easier if you will be in Missouri to ahead of time look at the map for where in the state you’ll be and have a good idea what PL Tones will be in use. </div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">It’s knowing what’s going on with your radio transmission (freq, offset, PL tone, etc) that separates the hams from the LMR appliance operators. I have a LMR radio that I don’t even know what band I’m on when I key up, it could be 155, 700 or 800 MHz depending on which tower is strongest at any given moment. I hope ham radio doesn’t get dumbed down to that level!<br class=""><div><br class=""><blockquote type="cite" class=""><div class="">On Nov 29, 2017, at 2:12 PM, Matthew Chambers <<a href="mailto:mchambers@mchambersradio.com" class="">mchambers@mchambersradio.com</a>> wrote:</div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><div class=""><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8" class=""><div style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;" class="">I use the RepeaterBook app on my android devices and the website on my laptop. The app is nice in that it uses your phones location to find nearby repeaters and even sorts them by distance from you. <div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">On the website here’s the link to use for finding repeaters along a planned travel route <a href="https://www.repeaterbook.com/repeaters/travel.php" class="">https://www.repeaterbook.com/repeaters/travel.php</a></div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class=""><br class=""><div class=""><br class=""><blockquote type="cite" class=""><div class="">On Nov 29, 2017, at 1:15 PM, . <<a href="mailto:groups.0acf@headquarters.earth" class="">groups.0acf@headquarters.earth</a>> wrote:</div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><div class=""><div class="">RepeaterBook?<br class=""><br class="">Jeff<br class="">N5TEV<br class=""><br class="">-------- Original Message --------<br class="">Subject: Re: [aprssig] Ham Radio MOBILE Traveler PL-FIND device?<br class="">From: spam8mybrain <<a href="mailto:spam8mybrain@yahoo.com" class="">spam8mybrain@yahoo.com</a>><br class="">To: TAPR APRS Mailing List <<a href="mailto:aprssig@tapr.org" class="">aprssig@tapr.org</a>><br class=""><br class="">Too bad all of the repeater databases have always been closed and proprietary (both the old ARRL TravelMate program and the new RFinder mobile app).<br class="">_______________________________________________<br class="">aprssig mailing list<br class=""><a href="mailto:aprssig@tapr.org" class="">aprssig@tapr.org</a><br class=""><a href="http://www.tapr.org/mailman/listinfo/aprssig" class="">http://www.tapr.org/mailman/listinfo/aprssig</a><br class=""></div></div></blockquote></div><br class=""></div></div></div></blockquote></div><br class=""></div></body></html>