[aprssig] APRS Monitoring and activity

[Robert Bruninga]

As I said in an earlier post, APRS is not an end in itself.
It is just a tool for doing HAM radio things.  One of the 
things it is used for is monitoring ANY or ALL packet
frequencies to see what is out there.

In our area, there are somthing like 25 packet freqs on 
2 meters.  And since all active packet systems are
encouraged to Beacon once every now and then to identify
their presence,  APRS is an ideal tool for finding out what is out
there.

And many of those assets with knowledgible owners put
a position in that beacon.  Thus, APRS will plot these
networks just like they do APRS.  Also, APRS should
receive and plot any DX cluster spots if  you run across one
of those too.

If you use APRSdos, however, you have to toggle the
CONTROLS-FILTER to OTHER so that APRS will capture any
packet and not just APRS stations.

Today, I'm home and stepping through all  25 channels about
30 minutes on each.  I have alrady found 3 JNOS nodes,
a local BBS, and a DX cluster and Im only on the 4th channel
now...

Also, if these sysops include their PHG in their beacon, then
you can eve see the connectivity of these systems and if
they have digi enabled, then you can even use thse as an
alternate RF path in an emergency by hopping from one
to another to your destination...

de WB4APR, Bob