[aprssig] New and playing

[William McKeehan]

I am new to APRS (and relatively new to HAM). I got started with APRS by
watching things via an internet feed and was pretty pleased with what I was
seeing.

So last week, I got myself a TinyTrak3 and put myself on the air with a 5.5
watt HT. After working with some issues of noise, etc., I began to sometimes
see myself via the internet.

Once I got things working, I started doing a bit of testing to see exactly how
this thing is going to work for me. The results have been interesting. I have
been in Memphis since Monday morning and have had my tracker running when I am
mobile and some of the time when I am sitting still. My path is set to RELAY,
WIDE2-2. My ability to get packets to the internet is very intermittent. Thus
the ability to remotely monitor my position is limited.

One thing that I really wanted to do with APRS is generate maps from my
off-road trips. The length of the trips is generally longer than the tracklog
in my GPS unit would hold, so I need an alternative storage location. Putting
a laptop in the jeep was my first idea, but with one roll-over under my belt,
the passenger seat is not the safest place for a laptop to ride. So I thought
that APRS would let me sit up a laptop in a remote location, use APRS to send
the location of the jeep to the laptop and let the laptop do the recording.

Given my testing over the past couple of weeks, it looks like I will need to
put the laptop in simplex range of the jeep in order to reliably capture
information. Given the tendency of the jeep trails to be remote, this will not
be easy.

Is there something that I am missing or is this about what I can expect from
APRS?

-- 
William McKeehan
KI4HDU
Internet: mckeehan at mckeehan.homeip.net
http://mckeehan.homeip.net