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Re: APRS reception concern Huntsville

AE5IB (Kip)
 

I make my car an IGATE and fill in (WIDE1-1) repeater. 

When the balloon is high in the air it will hit a repeater.  I had a less than 1 Watt balloon APRS hit a iGate directly in Kansas City from Texas about 500 miles away. 

The issue is when it gets closer to the ground or is on the ground. Having multiple vehicles iGate and digipeat makes sure whoever is in range let's everyone else know. Either by RF or internet. The problem is when you are also out of cell range. Then you have to hope your more powerful vehicle digi can hit a repeater.

It works well for me on many balloon launches and long distance bike rallies. 

Kip
AE5IB



On Thu, May 18, 2023, 8:31 PM Carlton Corbitt via groups.io <ccccrnr=aol.com@groups.io> wrote:
Hi Mark,

I don't have much airborne experience in Huntsville, but of any sizable city i've lived in since adding APRS to balloons the greater Huntsville area has the worse ground tracking of APRS i've come across.

my FTM-400 leaves a good bread crumb trail of my car everywhere else, but very hit or miss in the greater north alabama area.
I've heard several other hams also complain about APRS here versus where ever we came from, but alias we haven't actually done anything to fix the problem.

So given the limited i-gates with good reception around Huntsville, my concern is that they could get overloaded between all the balloons and all chase cars all packeting rapidly on Saturday of GPSL.

Thanks,
Carlton
ki4nhk
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