[aprssig] APRS Activity in New Orleans

[Ray McKnight]

I must respectfully ask by who's authority this "DO NOT SEND MESSAGES"
demand is issued?

I see no declaration by ARRL, FCC or ARES that 144.39 has been
designated as an emergency frequency.  No matter how well intentioned
this seems, it does ruffle my feathers, as I don't need more Big Brothers
than we already have.

Being licensed for 30 years, I think I can safely use prudent judgement
and follow accepted operating practice without the packet police crawling
all over my back.

Hopefully I have used sufficient restraint, my initial wording tended to
be quite a bit more emotional and less diplomatic.  If this *is* an official
request, I apologize, it sure doesn't seem like it though.

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "A.J. Farmer (AJ3U)" <farmer.aj at gmail.com>
To: "TAPR APRS Mailing List" <aprssig at lists.tapr.org>
Sent: Saturday, September 03, 2005 19:57
Subject: [aprssig] APRS Activity in New Orleans


So I don't ruffle any feathers, please read this before continuing:

DO NOT SEND MESSAGES TO ANY OF THESE STATIONS UNLESS YOU HAVE A VALID,
USEFUL REASON TO DO SO!  Just like phone operation, LISTEN and NEVER
TRANSMIT unless appropriate.  We all wish them well, but they don't
need any more "wishing you well" or "hope you are okay" messages
cluttering their APRS displays.

Having said that, the following link shows APRS stations in the
vicinity of New Orleans which are active and making it into the
APRS-IS within the last four hours (realtime):

http://www.findu.com/cgi-bin/near.cgi?zip=70112&last=4&distance=70&n=50&rate=1

AA5ED-10 and K5LSU-5 seem to be gating most of the packets.

Check the message traffic to and from these stations.  There are a lot
of incoming "wishing you well" messages, but if you sort through
those, you will see some stations appear to be actively communicating
and passing useful traffic or at least trying to get things
coordinated.  No, APRS isn't the first mode you go to in an emergency
like this, but it is another tool in the tool bag.

Also, consider the information in this link showing *some* of the
stations receiving the W5UK-9 digi in New Orleans:

http://www.mountainlake.k12.mn.us/ham/aprs/path.cgi?call=W5UK-9

Once again, I must stress:

DO NOT SEND MESSAGES TO ANY OF THESE STATIONS UNLESS YOU HAVE A VALID,
USEFUL REASON TO DO SO!  Just like phone operation, LISTEN and NEVER
TRANSMIT unless appropriate.  We all wish them well, but they don't
need any more "wishing you well" or "hope you are okay" messages
cluttering their APRS displays.

-- 
A.J. Farmer, AJ3U
http://www.aj3u.com

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