[aprssig] who hears my station

[Mark Saurman]

On 12/24/05, Dale Blanchard <wa7ixk at earthlink.net> wrote:
> It seems if i put my home station on freq I should hear a bleep once in .
> a while.
> I have heard on people saying it is possible, but i have never heard of
> some one actually trying it and having any success.
> I want data.!Not hearsay.

I drove from here (St. John's, Newfoundland) to Cleveland, Ohio (2,200
miles) with my TinyTrak3 on 30m with 100 watts + a hamstick and had
complete coverage the whole way except for a 100 mile stretch in
western Newfoundland where I bumped out the cigarette lighter adapter
with my beverage cooler.  This was in the summer and I drove at hours
as early as 5 am and as late as 1am.  In fact, the coverage was so
good, it far exceeded that of which I typically received doing the
same trip with VHF only tracking, especially in remote areas.

Right now, we have one VHF digi in all of Newfoundland.  Once you
leave Nova Scotia, there's no coverage on VHF for the next 565 miles
through Newfoundland to St. John's except for a small spot around New
Harbour.  I rely on HF digis/gates over 1,000 miles away in Maine and
beyond for my APRS activities here.  In the past I used to relay via
PCSAT-1 and manage to get through a handful of packets a day if
needed.  With 30 meters though, it's perfect whenever I need it,
except these days like mentioned before, it's difficult to get out
late at night in the winter.  The traffic is certainly there.  Listen
to all this good advice that's being given to you about how to set up
your radio and TNC correctly and you should see plenty of stations.