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<p><font face="Arial">On Sunday 16 June 2024, I will be departing
from entral Michigan on a cross-country road trip to Los
Angeles. I will have "Studio B" (my mobile hamshack and radio
operations trailer) in tow. </font></p>
<p><font face="Arial">Once again, I will be doing side-by-side
comparisons of classic HF AX.25 packet APRS and
APRS-over-VARA-HF. I will alternate beacons on AX.25 and VARA,
each mode on a 10-minute cycle while enroute. Both modes are
originated from the same computer, interface, radio (Yaesu
FT-891) and antennas (Quicksilver Radio ham sticks for 60 and
30m) in the car. <br>
Note that because this is being run as a full laptop-based
APRS setup (not a dumb transmit-only tracker), I should be able
to receive/send APRS messages on any of the three modes (VHF, HF
packet, HF VARA). <br>
Three instances of UIview will be running side-by-side from
separate folders to generate the three modes. <br>
</font></p>
<p><font face="Arial">For the first day out (Sunday 0-500 miles /
800 km), I will be operating on 60 meters "Channel 5" (5.403.5
USB). Plans are for the first overnight in Des Moines IA. For
the rest of the trip (too far away from my home igate/webserver
for 60M), I will be on the usual 30 meters APRS frequency --
10.147.600 USB with standard 1600/1800 Hz "KAM" tones on
300-baud AX.25 and standard VARA-HF tones. <br>
</font></p>
<p><font face="Arial">I will be using WA8LMF (no SSID) for 2M and
direct-to-Internet beaconing via cellular, WA8LMF-2 for the HF
AX.25 mode, and WA8LMF-3 for the HF VARA beacons. Thus you
can distinguish the posits from the three modes on sites like
findu.FI or my own personal APRS webservers at </font></p>
<p><font face="Arial"> <a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="http://WA8LMF.net/map"><http://WA8LMF.net/map></a></font></p>
<p><font face="Arial">I also have a dedicated Road Trip Tracker up
at my web site:</font></p>
<p><font face="Arial"> <a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="http://WA8LMF.net/RoadTrip"><http://WA8LMF.net/RoadTrip></a></font></p>
<p><font face="Arial">This tracker plots all three modes with their
three different SSIDs. It plots only what is heard off-the-air
on HF RF, as heard from my home QTH (no Internet).near East
Lansing MI. (The two-meter WA8LMF [no SSID] is plotted from
both off-the-air and the APRS-IS Internet feed.) The road
trip tracker plots posits on 3D-looking relief maps, so once I
get to Denver and the beginning of the "real west" (the Rocky
Mountains), the map display should be quite interesting. <br>
</font></p>
<p><font face="Arial">The outbound trip will be on I-80 across Iowa
and Nebraska, I-70 across Colorado and Utah, and I-15 Utah to
L.A. The return trip about a week later will be along the lay
of the old Route 66 (I-40 Barstow, CA - Arizona - New Mexico
onward to the eastern US. </font></p>
<p><font face="Arial">As an added "side-show" to this trip, I will
be running my "Mobile SSTV LiveCAM" from a second HF rig in the
car on 15 or 10 meters if the higher HF bands are open. I have
a web cam pointed out the front window that automatically grabs
and beacons a live SSTV image every ten minutes. This gets
especially interesting when I get west of Denver into the
Colorado Rockies and the Utah red rocks desert. <br>
</font></p>
<p><font face="Arial"><br>
</font></p>
<hr width="100%" size="2"><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>
APRS-over-VARA igates now operating on 30 & 60 meters<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="http://WA8LMF.net/map"><http://WA8LMF.net/map></a><br>
<br>
"Studio B" Ham Shack on Wheels<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="http://WA8LMF.net/Aliner"><http://WA8LMF.net/Aliner></a><br>
<br>
-- APRS over VARA --<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="http://wa8lmf.net/APRSoverVARA."><http://wa8lmf.net/APRSoverVARA.></a><br>
<br>
</font>
<p><font face="Arial"><br>
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