APRS while chasing

[david diehl]

Hey all,
I was wondering who all uses APRS while out chasing. I am getting it setup in my van, and was wondering what frequencies you all use with your APRS, I know 144.39 is a national APRS frequency, but wasn't sure what else was used.
Also I am wondering what frequencies are used for WX fax over digital mode on the radio.

Thanks,

David Diehl

 

[Tim Stoecklein]

I run APRS when chasing, and just about any other time I'm mobile. There's really no other frequency for APRS other than 144.390 (in the US), unless you are working with an organization who specifies a different freq for their operations.

As for WX fax, I'm not familiar with such a beast unless you are talking about a packet station for sending/receiving traffic, in which case there would be a designated frequency by area. I do, however, recv wx bulletins from NWS offices who utilized APRS as one of their notification methods.

Probably not very helpful answers, but I'm happy to answer any other questions you have about APRS from my experiences.

 

[Joe Dorn]

Hey all,
I was wondering who all uses APRS while out chasing. I am getting it setup in my van, and was wondering what frequencies you all use with your APRS, I know 144.39 is a national APRS frequency, but wasn't sure what else was used.
Also I am wondering what frequencies are used for WX fax over digital mode on the radio.

Thanks,

David Diehl

for practical purposes, 144.390 is the only frequency of significance in the United States. I have set up a packet network that encompasses eight counties in Central Texas on another frequency (145.070) so that our spotters can have a path into the internet when other digipeaters are not available.

We operate along IH-35, north of Austin and south of DFW; once you get 30 or so miles away from the corridor, private digis are far between. We already had a hospital packet network that was Igated (internet connected) so all I had to do was change a few parameters to make it into a secondary system.

Most of our more serious spotter/chasers run UIView, an APRS display program, connected via air card to the internet. This allows additional coverage where ever cell facilities are available. Once a position report hits the internet, it makes no difference how it got there. Spotter network displays them all.

AllisonHouse has additional display capabilities available in the pay to play portion that allows you to display in different formats. My Spotter Network icons are small but the ones I chose to track are large icons that makes it easy to spot our local people.

BTW, for those of you streaming video without position reporting are a waste of bandwidth in my opinion...

WX Fax, I believe, is of little use in today's connected world. It was used extensively by off shore operators (and probably still is by small budget operators) to retrieve weather information via radio.

 

[Andrew Herron]

I'll be using APRS for sure while I'm out this year. I'll probably also try to provide some sort of weather data using the METAR format, but that's a project for a rainy day right now. My father uses UIView and I'm very unimpressed with the state the application was left in, and the guy who wrote it (though I hate to speak ill of the passed, he could have released the source code).

 

[Jesse Risley]

Just to echo others, I do have my APRS active while chasing. I use the tried and true Kenwood TM-D700A, which is still kicking after a decade of regular usage. While I rarely, if ever, bother sending messages to other hams during a chase, it's nice to have the Spotter Network positioning functionality if I don't have any cell data.

While there are plenty of digipeater holes throughout the plains, you might often find that you have digipeater access where there is no cell access, and vice versa. I think the use of 144.390 MHz is fairly universal for APRS coverage, though other non-preeminent frequencies might be in operation on a local basis.

 

[Joe Dorn]

While there are plenty of digipeater holes throughout the plains, you might often find that you have digipeater access where there is no cell access, and vice versa. I think the use of 144.390 MHz is fairly universal for APRS coverage, though other non-preeminent frequencies might be in operation on a local basis.

I think I have posted this story before but it fits again...

Last January (2009) we made a trip to Chaco Canyon National Monument in the Four Corners area of New Mexico. We had no cell coverage (Alltel) from the time we left civilization from the south and re-entered it to the north.

I activated EchoLink once I had coverage again and talked back to out local repeater. I was amazed when I was told about my APRS track through that very desolate area. I checked it out and cofirmed an almost perfect track.

I knew New Mexico has a digi and repeater on top of most of the higher peaks but I still was amazed that I was hitting from fifty miles out on the medium power setting of my Kenwood D-710.

My UIView APRS program has filled in the gaps via cell towers on other occasions.

You will sometimes see me chasing myself on the different programs when both methods are connecting.