[aprssig] 30M APRS and digipeaters... (aliases)

[Stephen H. Smith]

On 7/12/2012 9:02 PM, Bob Bruninga wrote:
> Now if someone with in-depth HF propagation smarts and experience wanted to designate a system of LINKED path of specific digipaters, where they are spaced such that each one only hears its two adjacent neighbors and has a low probablity of hearing the hop beyond, then I would not object to experimenting with such a linear path system.
>
> I think the HF experts could reasonably answer the question as follows:
>
> WHAT is the optimum distance X for a 30m reliable QSO.  Then what is the distance Y which seems to be nearly impossible.  Then hopefully X is something similar to 1/2 of Y and space the digipeaters accordingly.

The intractable problem is that THERE IS NO SINGLE OPTIMUM DISTANCE.   For any 
given location, the optimum distance is constantly changing, hour-by-hour, 
day-to-night, the season of the year, the position in the 11-year solar cycle, 
and randomly when solar flares explode.

Speaking of flares, we got popped by a BIG one earlier today. Check out the 
NOAA/NASA X-Ray flux chart on my website at:
.     <http://wa8lmf.net/map>
Take a look before it scrolls off the three-day chart.