Vicinity tracking to Dayton with Findu

Where's K7GPS by vicinity tracking?

http://www.findu.com/cgi-bin/find.cgi?call=k7gps-9&vicinity=1

No GPS is needed. The location is picked from the first digipeater that heard the packet.

Bill - WA7NWP

If someone does not have a working GPS, they can still be approximately tracked to Dayton.

As long as they are transmitting some packet periodically, then you can use vicinity tracking to see at least what digi they are near. On FINDU, there is a great vicinity tracking feature. Just add "&vicinity=1" to the end of the normal FINDU.COM URL and it will plot the location of the digi that first heard the packet.

Here is an example:

http://www.findu.com/cgi-bin/find.cgi?call=we4apr-9&vicinity=1

That should plot the nearest digi that heard my last packet.

Using this feature, you can track things over large distances without having to power the GPS. Just flea power to a tiny PIC and transmitting a BEACON once every 30 minutes could last a year on a set of AA cells.

Good luck
Bob, WB4aPR

NEW YAESU VX-8R HT OFFERS APRS + MORE

Check out the features of the new Yaesu VX-8R HT, including APRS suppport, and due out this summer. Finally, some competition to the Kenwood D7A(G). Hopefully they will adapt APRS support to the FTM-10SR mobile radio I use on my motorcycle. http://www.universal-radio.com/catalog/ht/0008.html

NWAPRS SUMMER GATHERING 2008

The 11th annual NWAPRS Summer Gathering will be held the weekend following Labor Day, September 5-7, 2008, at the usual spot, Valley Camp, in North Bend, Washington, 30 miles east of Seattle along I-90. This is our annual gathering of the minds and is open to everyone with an interest in APRS. There are lots of fun things to do besides the APRS presentations Saturday. Eating is one of them, shopping is another, enjoying the majestic beauty around Valley Camp is yet another. Lots more info on the nwaprs.info web site, so please check it out and and come join us each September. David K7GPS

Monitoring Frequency in APRS Status Text

From an APRSSIG posting by Bob B.

> on my TinyTrack3.
> I was going to put in that I'm "Monitoring
> 146.520" and have that sent every 4th time.

Please consider putting it into the new APRS frequency format.
That is:

"146.52 MHz listening..."

By putting the freqeuncy as a FIXED field as the first 10 bytes of your position comment in the format "FFF.FFFMHz", then your frequency can be parsed. For example, the new Kenwoods have a TUNE button for one-button tuning to these frequencies.

Please see the web page on FREQUENCY:
http://www.ew.usna.edu/~bruninga/localinfo.html

Also please see the Tracker Manifesto:
http://www.ew.usna.edu/~bruninga/aprs/TrackerManifesto.doc

You are doing the right thing by publishing in your tracker, the frequency that you are monitoring so that you can be contacted at any time. After all, the tracker is connected to a two-way radio, you may as well be listening for calls on its receiver...

Bob, WB4APR

First Post

And no Dear Google, this is not a spam blog. It will be used for real informative postings. Please see http://www.nwaprs.info for our main home page.

73's.