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<p><font face="Arial">Starting this weekend, I will be on a road
trip that includes testing HF APRS on 60-meters. I will be
departing at 0800 local (US EDT/1300 UTC) on Sunday 10 June. <br>
</font></p>
<p><font face="Arial">The first day drive will be from my QTH in
central Michigan to Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. On Monday 11
June, I will be traveling from Wilkes-Barre to Philadelphia, PA;
i.e. half day trip. On Wednesday 13 June, I will make the return
trip from Philly to Michigan. <br>
</font></p>
<p><font face="Arial">I will be transmitting on 5403.50 KHz USB (US
60-meter "Channel 5") running a Yaesu FT-891 into a 60-meter
Hamstick. APRS beacons will alternate between: <br>
</font></p>
<ul>
<li><font face="Arial">Classic 300 baud AX.25 (WA8LMF-6)
1600/1800 Hz Standard "KAM" Tones<br>
</font></li>
<li><font face="Arial">APRS Messenger MFSK16 (WA8LMF-66) 2100
Hz Tone Center</font></li>
</ul>
<p><font face="Arial">Due to the shared-use mixed-mode (i.e. amateur
vs government voice vs data) nature of 60 meters, these will
not be the usual beacons that key-up periodically and
automatically without warning. Rather, I will be monitoring with
speaker audio and manually triggering beacons on demand whenever
the channel is quiet. Direct off-air reception reports, or
even two-way APRS messaging is invited. (I am running a full
mobile laptop installation with two-way comms capability.) <br>
</font></p>
<hr size="2" width="100%"><font face="Arial">At home in Haslett
(near East Lansing, MI), my TS-2000 with ladder-line-fed 105'
dipole, and my "Special Events" instance of UIview will be
running as an igate and mapping webserver to track the trip . Go
to <br>
</font>
<p><font face="Arial"> <a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E"
href="http://WA8LMF.net/map"><http://WA8LMF.net/map></a>
<br>
</font></p>
<p><font face="Arial">and click the black link for "Special Events
Server" to see the real-time map. Or look up WA8LMF-6 and/or
WA8LMF-66 on the usual Internet mapping sources. <br>
</font></p>
<hr size="2" width="100%">
<p><font face="Arial">The purpose of this test is to validate my
hypothesis that 60 meters with it's NVIS capability (and NO skip
zone like 30 meters) would be superior to 60 meters for 0-500
mile regional APRS coverage on HF. <br>
</font></p>
<p><font face="Arial">[My long term interest is the potential for
superior mobile HF APRS coverage of the US and Canadian interior
west (Colorado, Wyoming, Montana, Idaho, Utah, Nevada, Alberta,
eastern BC, etc). There are hundreds of thousands of square
miles in the thinly-populated mountainous terrain of the "Great
Basin" (i.e. between the Sierra Nevada/Cascades coastal
mountains and the US/Canadian Rockies) that have NO VHF coverage
at all. 30 meters doesn't work well here either, since the
relatively long-haul propagation on 30 means low radiation
angles that don't effectively get out of the canyons and valleys
rimmed by 7,000-to-14,000-foot mountains in the interior. 60
meters with it's excellent NVIS capabilities should be far
better for short-haul HF "leaping tall mountains ins a single
bound" mode. For example, an RV in the Grand Canyon of the
Gunnison in western Colorado reaching an igate in Denver. This
is only 150 miles away but no VHF coverage and deep in a canyon.
This path is far too close for 30 meters; the skip zone on this
band is usually 250-300 miles.]</font></p>
<hr size="2" width="100%">
<p><font face="Arial">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 class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://wa8lmf.net">http://wa8lmf.net</a><br>
<br>
Live Off-The-Air APRS Activity Maps<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="http://wa8lmf.net/map"><http://wa8lmf.net/map></a><br>
<br>
Long-Range APRS on 30 Meters HF <br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="http://wa8lmf.net/aprs/HF_APRS_Notes.htm"><http://wa8lmf.net/aprs/HF_APRS_Notes.htm></a></font></p>
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