[aprssig] VA and TN digipeaters

[Bob Bruninga]

My Travels down I-81 and I-40 through VA and Tennessee:

I found dead zones again around Knoxville and eastern Tennessee, but fortunately I saw a 146.94 repeater object and was able to make a local contact and find out that 3 major digis were temperoaryliy down.  Using my D710, I first hit FILTER DIGIS and then SORT by distance.  It was easy to then see a summary of what was around me. of 38 digis, half were not really of good value.

50% New-N Paradigm with S overlays
18% old-N with no useful info in their beacons
18% obsolete R/W/T digis of no present value
 2  Relay only (should change to WIDE1-1)
 1  New-N Paccom (P overlay)
 1  obsolete Paccom (T overlay)
 1  L overlay digi (should be changed to S settings).

It really does not take any new hardware or software or in half the cases, even a trip to the site to correct most of this.  

THe 7 old-N can simply be reconfigured remotely
the 2 relays can simply change MYALIS from RELAY to WIDE1-1
The 7 RWT simply need reconfiguring to New-N
the one osolete Paccom can be re-configured to a "P" paccom and be somewhat new-N compliant.

In these 38 digis, I only got maybe 3 Frequency object recommendatiosn...  This reallly needs work.  Thre are lots of great voice repeaters down that I-81 corridore and lots of great people to talk to, if they would just have an object telling travlers where to look.

Bob, Wb4APR