[aprssig] APRS Coverage in Key West

[Robert Bruninga]

It sounds like the APRS activity has dried up down there and so
there is little support for fixing the reliability of the WX
digis, and so even the primary objective is not being well met.
Maybe it is time for the WX folks to upgrade the digis to New-N
and this might grow back the APRS users and grow back the WX
network to meet their needs, and a larger support group to keep
it reliable?  Just an observation...  Bob

> The county has no interest in APRS in general, they 
> simply use this  for a very specific purpose, to get 
> weather to the EOC in Marathon during hurricanes 
> and other emergencies.... the path to Miami is unreliable.
> 
> > But for disaster response, I would think that
> > upgrading to the higher network efficiency of the 
> > New-N system could be justified for incoming first 
> > responders with APRS....
> 
> There simply is no interest in their part. I tried 
> years ago (when there still were a dozen local users) 
> without success. Now there are no local RF users, 
> so there is even less reason.
>
> ... it is not unusual to shut down for days. Look at 
> any of the weather stations for a visual display of 
> this (this is the Key West one):
> 
> http://www.findu.com/cgi-bin/wxpage.cgi?call=KQ4AZ-1&last=240