Are you promoting AMSAT activities to area mobiles?

Now that there are 3 Kenwood and 4 Yaesu radios with front-panel APRS displays, and TT4, OT2, HAMHUD and other add-on displays to older radios, the Ham community is starting to finally see what APRS was always about - the desimination of local/relevant/real-time ham radio activities and information to other operators. It was not about vehicle tracking!

It is an information sharing channel so that everyone can see everytrhing happening on ham radio in the area. This means INFO that is pushed to the front panel of APRS radios and operators:

* Locally reecommended Travelers Repeater * Local Echolink or IRLP Freq, tone and codes * Local NETS or Meetings planned or in progress * Location of next HAMFEST (drive right to it) * Azimuth, elevation, freq and doppler of any AMSATS in view * Bulletins and Announcements, Weather alerts. * and many more.

So, if you are doing *anything* AMSAT related and you want people within your area to see your activity, then you should be posting an APRS AMSAT object so that everyone will see it. For example, HAMFEST Objects are posted up to 2 weeks in advance and so everytime someone gets in his car, or drives through the area, he will be alerted to this coming hamfest on the front panel of his radio.

We should be doing this for AMSAT activities too. Even if you are just doing a demo in a parking lot. Send it out on APRS and everyone in the county will see what-when-where and why. I have prepared a web page to show you how to post these objects:

www.aprs.org/hamfest.html

But it is like any dead band. If no one is posting these objects, then there is nothing to see. That's why we call it "amateur radio operating", not "sitting" or "listening". If you don't post these objects, who will?

This is just part of the larger APRS Information Initiative to push relevant info TO visitors and mobile operators. See www.aprs.org/localinfo.html

Bob, WB4APR