[amsat-bb] Re: APRS FD

[Robert Bruninga]

> Are there any success stories for APRS and FD? 

Two topics:

TOPIC 1 GO32:  Yours truly blew it.  I was the main man at
setting up an all new FD site right in the middle of the tourist
capital of Maryland (Annapolis City dock).  Talk about public
exposure!  See
http://www.ew.usna.edu/~bruninga/field-day2008.html 

Our FD score was inversly proportional to our HIGH score at
talking to the public.  I missed every pass on Saturday evening,
but was focused on GO-32 for the overhead pass on Sunday
morning.  Put the ARROW on a tripod so I could conccentrate on
messaging...  Figured GO32 was stong enough...

Nothing heard... With enough unknowns, different laptop, etc, I
didn't try different polarizations until late in the pass.  Duh,
I knew GO32 was gravity stabilized, darned if I didn't have my
arrow horizontal on UHF!  Too late.  Maybe someone got my
uplink, but I heard nothing... Till the very end and by then it
was too low..

TOPIC 2, GLOBAL GROUPS:  But I made dozens and dozens of APRS
contacts on the terrestrial system using the new APRS CQSRVR.
AMSAT folks involved in large area experiments might conisder
using this new global group messaging capabiltity for large area
coordination.  Using only your APRS radio, you can be in
communication with all other APRS people in your group.  For
example, everyone could send a message to a group named "AMSAT"
and then everyone else in that group (anywhere in the world)
would get that message live.

Might be useful for launch campaigns...  See the web page:
http://www.ew.usna.edu/~bruninga/cqsrvr.html

Bob, WB4APR