[aprssig] New and playing

[William McKeehan]

Today I am back home and was able to do some quick testing.

I took a handheld scanner - tuned to 144.39, attached a 1/4 wave 2 meter mag
mount antenna, and put the antenna on a piece of sheet metal and placed it on
the edge of my roof (easy to reach). I took a quick run out and about and sure
enough, even with just the rubber duck HT antenna on the 5.5 watt HT, I began
seeing myself much better than before. I guess I should point out that the
scanner is attached to my Linux box via a soundcard and Xastir is running
listening to the "soundcard TNC".

So, it looks like my theory of adding a relay digi (or an IGate) would be
helpful to me and others in my area (the few that are around).

I was surprised to be hearing stations digipeted that are over 200 miles away.

So I guess I am in the market for an inexpensive 2 meter radio to setup as a
relay digipeter. Anyone got a nice 2 meter radio to donate :-)

Thanks to everyone for their constructive feedback on this topic!

On Thu, November 18, 2004 2:19 pm, William McKeehan said:
> In my home area, I think a problem for me is that THE digi in the area has a
> very good coverage - and my HT can not hear nearly as much as the digi hears,
> so a larger percentage of my packets are at the same time as some other
> stations and I am loosing (or we are both loosing). I plan to take steps to
> improve the situation my home area.
>
> Right now, I think my first step toward solving this will be to add an IGate
> with a reasonable antenna at my home. I'm not sure if I need to setup a digi
> or just an igate. Can anyone offer any suggestions about this? My home area is
> Kodak, TN - http://www.findu.com/cgi-bin/find.cgi?call=ki4hdu-0.
>
> On Thu, November 18, 2004 2:03 pm, Robert Bruninga said:
>>>>> lcerney at viawest.net 11/18/04 10:40:32 AM >>>
>>>... Using RELAY,WIDE2-2 is great in an urban area
>>>with RELAYs around, but if there are no RELAYs around
>>>your position beacon goes no farther.
>>
>> But *every* digi is supposed to also respond to RELAY and
>> do callsign substitution... so it should not matter where one
>> is when using that path.  The problem with trackers is 100%
>> congestion  on the inputs of most digis who are hearing all
>> the QRM from the suprrounding 300 miles.  Thats why
>> separating the local user inputs to 144.99 (if available
>> in your area) is the way to solve that problem...
>> de WB4APR, Bob
>>
>>
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>
>
> --
> William McKeehan
> KI4HDU
> Internet: mckeehan at mckeehan.homeip.net
> http://mckeehan.homeip.net
>
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-- 
William McKeehan
KI4HDU
Internet: mckeehan at mckeehan.homeip.net
http://mckeehan.homeip.net