[aprssig] No APRS in Louisville, KY

[John Vause]

Re. the lack of APRS traffic in Louisville.

 >"Is an alternate freq in use there? A local ordinance prohibiting APRS?"
Nope, most likely lack of interest.

I maintain the KF4ERV Igate and used to maintain the KF4ERV-10 airport 
relay digi now defunct since my early retirement in 2006 and subsequent 
closing of the Ky. Transportation Cabinet offices on Phillips Ln. which 
was approx. 1/2 mile from Louisville Int'l Airport (SDF) in 2008.
I've run tests with my D7 and you can make it to the igate IF you are at 
full power, use more than a loading coil for an antenna and stand in the 
right location - yes you can make in from the non-secure food court area 
of the airport so I didn't see the need to lobby my ex-employer to keep 
the airport digi
running. Since the office has closed and moved out Westport Road it's a 
moot point.
The KF4ERV Igate has been in existence since 1999 (back then it was just 
K4DMU and me locally) and is as 24/7/365 as I can make it given the 
occasional DSL issues (I had a line open fault outage last week) and the 
issues with running Microsoft Win2K and UIview. One of these days I'll 
move the igate to Linux...
I've tuned the KPC3 igate tnc according to N8UR's recommendations.

 >"1) It is being transmitted from a UIview client with a 2 hop path and 
is therefore spamming lots of area far beyond the usable footprint of 
the repeater."

The 146.70-/R voice repeater object was a recent addition and is loaded 
into a LT buffer in the KPC3+ /HTX202 that is transmitting my 
T238/One-wire weather station data. The weather station digipeats the 
object through my igate digi ergo the two digi hop.
Given: that the 146.70-/R voice repeater object's BEACON path is hard 
coded KF4ERV, KY4KY-3, that the igate doesn't hear much past the KY3KY-3 
digi, AND the afore mentioned lack of traffic, I do not believe this to 
be a problem.
If somebody wants to program the KY4KY-3 digi (a TNC2 running UIDIGI the 
last time I spoke to Don Marquart, K9SOA(SK) who set it up) to tx the 
repeater object it's fine with me.
Since Don passed away in 2006, I don't know who has taken up admin of 
KY4KY-3.

 >"Neither of these digis has PHG data which is fundamental for 
digipeaters."
Just added it to the igate, see above for why KY4KY-3 doesn't have PHG data.

 >"3) It could include Weekly Net time (if avail)"

>"4)It could include monthly Meeting time (if avail)"

I need to review Bob's recommendations for repeater objects and the BARS 
club schedule and then I'll add this info. (unless one of the area's 
other APRS users want to take over ownership of the 146.70-/R voice 
repeater object).

 >"The largest APRS user in Louisville is our local  search and rescue 
team."
More power to them. I put up the igate with the intent of supporting 
APRS operations, RF-to-Inet messaging and transmission of weather data 
to MADIS and the APRSWXNET.
Other than Gary KF4BAQ  , myself, the occasional home station and a few 
travelers the local APRS channel is quiet. 

K9SOA(SK) was the one who promoted APRS the most in the Louisville area.
Since he passed away in 2006, I don't know who has taken up the cause...

 >"Maybe buildings or hills weaken the coverage along I-64? I could hear 
a few packets, but only one was decoded by my D700 (a digi south of town.)"

The topology of the Louisville area is such: downtown is approx 400' 
ASL, the east side of Louisville is approx. 700' ASL, The south side of 
Louisville is approx. 800' ASL, There are some hills in the southwest 
end of Louisville that hit 1200' ASL if memory serves correctly 
(Cardinal hill, etc.). And then there is  Floyd Knobs to the north and 
west at 1300' ASL.
My igate is at 540' ASL in the middle of all the above mentioned topology.
In other words, my igate is located at the bottom of a large bowl. :-(

Just some 411 on the Louisville APRS situation.

Bob Bruninga wrote:
 >>SNIP<<

73 de John KF4ERV - TAWG Member KY28

-- 
*   My favorite law: The Law of Unintended Consequences   *
*                                -- John Vause            *
*   You can fool yourself if you want, and you can fool   *
*   as many as will follow for as long as you can get     *
*   away with it. But you can't fool reality.             *
*   - James P. Hogan in "Kicking The Sacred Cow"          *
*                                                         *
*   Si vis pacem, para bellum - Cicero                    *


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