Re: Tracking Friends at Dayton..
This year you can use your DTMF HT to report where you are hanging out at the Hamvention to about 120 feet just by sending two digits for your XY coordinate.
Well, maybe Dayton was not the best place to introduce this "special event" capability <grin>... Even at the 0.25 mile scale, of the 290+ stations heard, at least 190 of them were all within the square city block of the Hamvention fences. That-is, Wall to wall stations on the map so cluttered you couldnt find anyone unless you used a search function to find their call on the map! . So position reporting was not the best application.
In this case the best application was not sending POSITION, but would be sending FREQUENCY. This way, you dont need to know where they were (or find them on the map), but just look at their data and CALL them by voice.
Again, APRS was not designed for "tracking", but just as a national data channel for exchanging valuable information in the surrounding area. Exchanging operating frequency is just as important in Ham radio as position in many cases.
We can kill this thread here on the AMSAT-bb, now, since everyone either found each other at the AMSAT booth or excellent banquet!
Thanks Bob, WB4APR
On Sat, 16 May 2009 00:07:21 -0400 (EDT), "Bob Bruninga "
In this case the best application was not sending POSITION, but would be sending FREQUENCY. This way, you dont need to know where they were (or find them on the map), but just look at their data and CALL them by voice.
Bob,
I know I picked on the first posting about the location tracking earlier, so I feel compelled to give my first impression of this -- and my first thought was: "THAT'S COOL!"
Finding what FREQUENCY someone is on is something that's amazingly empowering to Amateurs attempting to make contacts of any sort.
So far, the hobby has been stunted in this regard -- we have what? The hunt and pounce/spin the dial... we have dedicated frequency infrastructure either via the technology or via "agreements" (like 'this HF Net meets here'), and we have DX Cluster/Spotting type networks, and that's about it... and even on those, it's somewhat "improper" for cultural reasons to "self-spot"...
So a mechanism to tell others, "Hey I'm at a radio and I'm listening to X frequency"... is WAY cool.
Sorry to tie up AMSAT-BB one more time with a reply -- but maybe to TRY to keep it on-topic I'd say, "Imagine if people could say in real time... XXX, YYY, and ZZZ are all listening to this bird because they've sent a notification that they are, and if they're able to hear me, they'll respond!"
It won't replace the wonder and amazement of a "raw" CQ call that gets answered by a new Amateur voice halfway around the world, and the contesting world would be in an uproar about that "self-spotting" if anyone used it to help others find them during an operating "skills" event... but for day-to-day "get 'er done" types of contacts, it's really got some interesting potential. "I'm in the car, and I'm listening to X" info, when you've been trying to catch up with an old friend on the air, etc... would be invaluable.
Nate WY0X -- Nate Duehr nate@natetech.com
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Bob Bruninga -
Nate Duehr