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<p><font face="Arial">Over the period 8 October 2024 to 26 October
2024, I will be on another extensive road trip, running HF APRS
both over classic AX.25 packet, and over VARA. <br>
</font></p>
<p><font face="Arial">A friend of mine is flying from Los Angeles to
Chicago on the 8th. I will then take her for a fall color tour
of northern Michigan, before driving her back to Los Angeles.
This will be a long looping itinerary west from Michigan on I-80
to the Mississippi River, then south following the Great River
Road (the secondary roads along the banks of the Mississippi) to
New Orleans. Then west across Texas to northern New Mexico,
southern Colorado and Arizona back to Calfornia. For anyone
wanting to log four states in one transmission, I will be
stopping at the "4-Corners" point on the Navajo Nation where
Utah, Colorado, New Mexico and Arizona meet at one point. <br>
</font></p>
<p><font face="Arial">I will be operating HF exclusively on 30
meters this time (no 60 meters tests). As in the past I will
use multiple SSIDs:<br>
</font></p>
<p><font face="Arial"> - WA8LMF (no SSID) is 2M VHF 144.39 and
direct-to-Internet cellular data.</font></p>
<p><font face="Arial"> - WA8LMF-2 is 30M HF conventional 300-baud
AX.25 packet APRS</font></p>
<p><font face="Arial"> - WA8LMF-3 is 30M HF APRS-over-VARA</font></p>
<p><font face="Arial">Because these are full desktop-type APRS
installations (3 instances of UIview) running on my
newly-commisioned Panasonic CF-53 "Toughbook" mobile laptop in
the car, I can receive APRS messages on any of the three modes.
As before, the mobile rig is a Yaesu FT-891 running into a 30
-meter Quicksilver Radio "QuickStick" hamstick-type mono-band
whip. <br>
</font></p>
<p><font face="Arial"><br>
</font></p>
<p><font face="Arial">My personal APRS igate/mapping-webservers
will be following my trip at:<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="http://WA8LMF.net/map"><http://WA8LMF.net/map></a><br>
(These displays only show what my home station in central
Michigan (East Lansing area) is hearing OFF-THE-AIR -- not from
the Internet.)<br>
</font></p>
<p><font face="Arial">Additionally, my new "RoadTrip Tracker" page
at <br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="http://WA8LMF.net/RoadTrip"><http://WA8LMF.net/RoadTrip></a> <br>
will provide a series of fixed-scale shaded-relief maps of the
trip. The road trip tracker uses a combination of off-the-air
reception and the APRS Internet feed. </font></p>
<p><font face="Arial"><br>
</font></p>
<p><font face="Arial">30 meters normally has a skip zone of 250-300
miles; I.e. my home station in Michigan could never hear
anything CLOSER than about Chicago, Cincinnati or Toronto,
Ontario. Travels anywhere inside Michigan were never heard by
my 30M igates when I was the ONLY APRS-over-VARA igate on the
air. </font><font face="Arial"><br>
Now that WA7GMX in the state of Washington, and WB8SKP in
western Kentucky now appear to be running full-time
APRS-over-VARA igates on 30 meters as well, the HF coverage
should be much more consistent everywhere, even inside Michigan,
then in the past. My trip up north in Michigan should be heard
and igated by one or both of these other stations. (Assuming
another solar explosion/geomagnetic storm doesn't wipe out HF
entirely!) </font><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>
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