[aprssig] WIDE4-4 comments

[Robert Bruninga]

New Mexico APRS:

I visited Albuquerque for an hour and was pleased to see my HT
while sitting in the airport fill up with information on the
surrounding ham radio activities.  I noticed all the digis were
well programmed to the New-N paradigm and gave me, the visitor,
all the information I needed.

One thing I noticed was that all digipeaters listed W4 as the
recommended hop size.  Since I was only using a D7 HT, and did
not have a map display, I could only see the last 40 stations
and could not get a good visualization on the big picture.  So I
am curious how well this W4 recommendation is working out.

I do remember that New Mexico has an excellent full state
coverage with APRS digipeaters on almost every mountain in the
state.  In fact, I used to remember that they often had more
digipeaters on the air than hams.  I just did a google on New
Mexico APRS and found this summary:
http://www.urfmsi.org/aprs.html

It is interesting that this site receommended WIDE3-3.

Since the New-N paradigm worked so well at reducing dupes and
QRM on the channel, maybe after operating at W3-3 for a while,
the locals found that they could go up to 4-4 and still have a
working network without spill over into adjacent cities?  I know
NM is unique in its spare population density, and has one of the
best APRS networks in the world..  Anyway, has anyone kept an
eye on this and can comment on how well the channel is working
out there?

Thanks.
Bob, WB4APR