[aprssig] Hang Glider APRS

[Jason Winningham]

On Apr 18, 2006, at 3:35 PM, Andrew Rich wrote:

> Gudday
>  
> In contact with the local hang glider club. One guy is going to fly 
> 100 Km's cross country.
>  
> Now I have to make the decision wether the pocket tracker will make 
> the distance.
>  
> I measured it with a comms test set - 168 mW.
>  
> Anyone had expereince with RF vs Distance from airborne objects ?

You're generally good until the planet gets in the way. (:

I've listened to a 40mW beacon and decoded packets from a 350mW tracker 
from 300 miles away, using a D7 and an arrow handheld yagi.  The 
transmitters were in a high altitude balloon.

168mW is a bit weak, but their advertising for that unit claims it does 
better than the power level would lead you to believe.  I have no 
personal experience with the device.

If I had a bigger transmitter (say 500 mW) I'd use it, but if the 
PocketTracker is all you've got, fly it and see.

-Jason
kg4wsv