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<p><font face="Arial">There has been considerable discussion of the
relative merits of APRS-over-VARA on 30 meters vs 40 meters
recently on several mailing lists. </font></p>
<p><font face="Arial">On February 8th, I will be traveling from my
home QTH in central Michigan (Meridian Twp east of East Lansing)
to Traverse City, MI for the annual Cherryland Amateur Radio
Club Swap-N-Shop. This is about a two-hundred mile (360 Km)
drive. <br>
</font></p>
<p><font face="Arial">I plan to conduct a test of 30M vs 40M
APRS-over-VARA on this trip. I have TWO HF rigs in the car with
separate antennas. One is a Yaesu FT-891 with a mono-band
hamstick on a fender split-ball mount, dedicated full-time to
30M HF APRS. The other is a Yaesu FT-857 with an ATAS-120A
screwdriver antenna hard-mounted to the trunk lid is used for
general operating on bands other than 30M -- usually for my
"Mobile SSTV LiveCAM" on 15 or 10 meters. </font></p>
<p><font face="Arial">For this trip, I will put the 857 and ATAS-120
on 40 meters APRS. I will run two instances of UIview, two
instances of the VARA-HF modem, and two interfaces on the mobile
laptop, one for 30 meters and one for 40 meters side-by-side.
The Panasonic Toughbook CF-53 quad-core computer with 16GB RAM
has no trouble running all this, along with a third instance of
UIview for two-meter packet APRS on my Kenwood TM-D700. <br>
</font></p>
<p><font face="Arial">The departure to the ham fest will be in
darkness around 3:00 AM local (Eastern) time, so as to arrive at
the venue by 7:30 AM (around sunrise) in time to setup. The
return trip will be in full daylight, problably starting around
1:30 PM local. <br>
</font></p>
<p><font face="Arial">As in previous packet vs VARA tests, I will be
using different SSIDs for the 30 and 40 meter beacons --
WA8LMF-2 for 30 meters and WA8LMF-3 for 40 meters so one will
able to generate different tracks on APRS-fi for the two bands.
WA8LMF (no SSID) is always my two-meters FM + internet beacons.
<br>
</font></p>
<p><font face="Arial">This trip will probably be in the skip zone
for my own igate in central MI (once I get out of town) on 30
meters, and probably also on 40. I will be depending on other's
igates on both bands to reach the Internet on HF. <br>
</font></p>
<p><font face="Arial">Any thoughts about this before I set out next
month??</font></p>
<p><font face="Arial">I'm already planning to do this also on next
summer's annual road trip to Evergreen Colorado for the
Evergreen Jazz Festival always the last weekend of July. This
will involve full-summer long-days HF propagation on both
bands. <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>
New 30 Meter APRS-over VARA Frequency <br>
As of 1 Jan 2025. Details Here:<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="http://WA8LMF.net/VARA/NewFrequency.htm"><http://WA8LMF.net/VARA/NewFrequency.htm></a><br>
<br>
- APRS over VARA --<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="http://wa8lmf.net/VARA/APRSoverVARA"><http://wa8lmf.net/VARA/APRSoverVARA></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>
-<br>
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