We have an urgent need for Ham Packet Ops on mountain tops in New Hampshire, Mount Greylock, MA, Sams Point, NY, Clingmans Dome in the Smokie Mountains and Roan Mountain NC.
This is a 4 hour event making our annual attempt at the Golden Packet, an APRS packet message from Maine to Georgia along the Appalachian Mountain Chain on Saturday 20 July.
All you need is an APRS radio that can digipeat (D72, D700, D710) and a power source and antenna. (and Know how to operate it!) All of these sites are “drive up” except Sam’s point in New York. The attempt is from noon to 4 PM. Remember, Tim, KA1YBS has to begin in the dark to climb a full MILE straight up to get to the top of Mt Katahdin in Main and then get back down before sunset. Hence, the 4 hour window.
This is our 4th annual attempt and last year we were successful except for only one broken link in NH. Will you be available to help make history? The Golden Packet was proposed back in the early 80’s. It has never been claimed since the rise of the Internet that has eclipsed all DX packet attempts. We will do this every year even beyond success. It is a good test of emergency long distance packet techniques.
If you can activate one of the above 5 sites, please see detail links on this page for each site and learn all you can:
http://aprs.org/at-golden-packet.html
Think of this as Packet Radio FIELD DAY! These 14 sites have been well surveyed and we know the links will work, if everyone can get in place and KNOW how to operate their radio.
Other secondary sites are also invited on Stone Mountain, GA, Lookout Mountain TN, and Huntsville Mountain
Bob, WB4aPR
WHy only those 3 radios?
Cannot any 2m rig with an ArgentData Systems T3 or one of their other devices, or even a venerable kpc3+, digipeat?
All you need is an APRS radio that can digipeat (D72, D700, D710) and a power source and antenna. (and Know how to operate it!)
WHy only those 3 radios? Cannot any 2m rig with any [TNC] or one of their other devices, or even
a venerable kpc3+, digipeat?
Yes, but it is all about risk. Generallly, 90% of all packet radio/TNC's on the air are misconfigured in someway or another. It has been this way for the last 40 years of packet..., and although they "work" some suffer as much as 20 dB or more loss of weak signal performance (but no one notices because it "works"). Most are just plug-n-play till it "works" with no attention to levels, deviation, clipping, compression, skew, balance, bandwidth, pre-and de-emphasis, etc.
When trying to do a one-time long-chain national test, the risk of a single station not meeting 100% optimum settings and causing the whole test to fail is just too high. The kenwoods may not be the perfect of any of the above settings, but they are factory consistent and beyond the owners abilty to screw up. And they are very sensitive to each other, able to decode each other's packets down to only 3 bars (about -116 dBm) where as some TNC's and Trackers must have 60 dB over S9 full scale dead full quieting signals before they are decoded. Yet their owners claim "the work"...
All you need is an APRS radio that can digipeat (D72, D700, D710) and a power source and antenna. (and Know how to operate it!)
And said another way, These radios all use a flat passband and most all TNC/Radio combos use pre and de-emphasis. I'm not saying one is better than the other, but we must have consistency. Many Many dB of weak signal performance is lost when one tries to talk to the other.
Thanks Bob, WB4APR
participants (2)
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qrv＠kd4e.com -
Robert Bruninga