[aprssig] TinyTrak with D700 note from a few months back?

[Keith VE7GDH]

David KB3NAI wrote...

> I've found, that the D700 isn't beaconing at an interval that seems to
> supply as much location information as I'd like for my family to be able
> to locate me. Even if I have it set to beacon every 3 minutes, here in the
> DC area at the hours I drive, I don't see very many transmissions getting
> through. (There's a lot of APRS traffic around here.) The TinyTrak,
> however, with its variable beaconing rate, and its sensitivity to turns,
> seemed to get significantly more reports out, and that with an HT running
> at 1/10 the power.

The problem with beaconing every three minutes is that it's beaconing every
3 minutes whether you are moving or not until you change it or turn the
radio off. What path are you using in the D700 and what path are you using
in the TinyTrak? Maybe you are using an obsolete path in the D700. The
recommended path for mobiles in North America is WIDE1-1,WIDE2-1. In a few
locations, longer paths are used, but most populated areas, the two hop path
that I mentioned should give you good results.

One of the significant advantages of the TT3 is SmartBeaconing. Beacon at a
very low rate when you are parked or in rush hour traffic, and beacon a bit
more often when moving plus corner pegging. Are you using the same GPS
receiverwith the D700 and the TT3? If different, perhaps the one you are
using with the D700 doesn't perform as well as the one you are using with
the TT3. What about the antenna you are using with the D700? When was
the last time you connected an SWR meter to it and wiggled the connections
both at the radio and at the antenna? Maybe you have a bad connection there.

oh oh... I just checked www.findu.com/cgi-bin/find.cgi?KB3NAI and you are
using a really abusive path of WIDE2-2,WIDE1-1. You should NEVER have
WIDE1-1 anywhere other than the first item in your path. Having it after
WIDE2-2 will cause every single WIDE1-1 digi within range of whichever
WIDEn-N digis can hear you to fire off all at the same time causing a huge
amount of QRM that would cause a dis-service to every APRS user around
you... possibly for hundreds of miles depending on the topography and
positioning of the WIDEn-N digis. That should be changed ASAP.

Looking at the raw data at
http://www.findu.com/cgi-bin/raw.cgi?call=KB3NAI-2&time=1, at least you
aren't beaconing often... or is it that you aren't being heard often? I
would still take a look at your antenna to make sure you don't have a
problem with it. It could just turn out to be that the frequency is so busy
that lots of stations are clobbering each other, but your current path would
not be helping the situation. It would just make the frequency even busier
than it needs to be causing problems for other stations.

73 es cul - Keith VE7GDH
--
"I may be lost, but I know exactly where I am!"