Tracking to Boone

There had been some early comments on the board that that APRS coverage was not good thru Iowa. Ry and I had pretty good luck on the trip to Boone for the flyin yesterday.



Great time at Boone other than the "sporty" gusting crosswind of 15+ knots. I freely admit that luck played a good part in my better than normal X-wind landing yesterday.

More long XC trips soon out west. I hope to have good coverage for those, too.

I flew my first long x-c since installing my APRS.

The flight was from Langley, BC to Scappoose OR and back. You can see the track by clicking the link below. Call sign is VA7VRL. Pretty boring, actually, thanks to my autopilot.

My setup is a MicroTrak 300 mounted on my seat back brace with a whip antenna.

Looking at the raw packet data, there are a lot of discarded and duplicate packets for the BC and Washington portions of the flight. This indicates that my little transmitter is getting good coverage.

I seems that my flight over Whidbey Island NAS and the Trident submarine base did not trigger any electronic countermeasures, so that's good. No Blackhawks showed up to escort us to an interview.

I think I will tweak my parameters a bit to shorten my message. Shorter messages will have a better chance to get through. Not sure why my packet integrity was better in Oregon than Washington... maybe the clean air and friendly people make a difference.

The NW RV Fly-in was well attended, but these things are starting to feel like meetings of the clones. Thank goodness my friend Shona flew her Glasair down to provide some variety! I did finally get to see Gus Fennell's RV-6. Usually he flies factory a/c.

Next up: Langley BC's fly-in June 21. This is a lot of fun because in addition to the RV's we get a lot of classic aircraft and other homebuilts as well, builders' seminars and really good food. Van's only Canadian visit. Join us!

Vern

Just returned from Destin, Florida this morning, about 540 nm. Flight path over eastern Kentucky, eastern Tennessee, western Georgia, and eastern Alabama. APRS tracked well even in sparsely populated eastern Kentucky. On the way down I was doing 4,500' due to strong headwind. On the way back, I flew at 9,500'. Headwind both ways. Tracker digi path selected was WIDE 2-1 only. Does not seem to have any problem in this area of the country.

The entire trip down:


Landing at Destin, Florida:


Return trip before data get updated:
http://aprs.fi/?call=KD8IIR&mt=m&z=11&timerange=21600

Good coverage in Four Corners area

We are getting pretty good APRS coverage in the west with our setup. Here is a recent trip from Albuquerque to Bluff, UT and a bit west of there. Some of this is very remote country.



Here is the link to the flight.
http://aprs.fi/?call=KC5FTV-2&dt=1212710400&mt=m&z=11&timerange=10800

MT8000 transmitter, Ry-Pole antenna in wingtip. WIDE 1-1, WIDE 2-1 for now, but will be removing WIDE 1-1 when I get a chance to get the wingtip opened up.

JD,

Looking at your track it seems you visited Mounment Valley. It is a place I always want to visit. What is the best time of the year to go? Looks like 11,800' is the highest altitude you climbed to. It is easy to do with an RV.

Tracking to SLC

I'll be launching for Salt Lake (actually BTF) in the morning at or before 1300Z , it will be a good test of my tracker over remote parts of OR,ID and northern UT. Tail number is N174BK.

Bob Brown said:

I'll be launching for Salt Lake (actually BTF) in the morning at or before 1300Z , it will be a good test of my tracker over remote parts of OR,ID and northern UT. Tail number is N174BK.

Click to expand...

Interesting - I look forward to seeing how that does...

Bob Brown said:

I'll be launching for Salt Lake (actually BTF) in the morning at or before 1300Z , it will be a good test of my tracker over remote parts of OR,ID and northern UT. Tail number is N174BK.

Click to expand...

Bob is about halfway to BTF and is laying down a solid line of breadcrumbs.

http://aprs.fi/?call=N174BK&mt=m&z=10&timerange=3600

Looks like Bob's almost there!

Good coverage in some remote areas.... Nice!

http://aprs.fi/?call=N174BK&dt=1213660800&mt=m&z=5&timerange=3600

Looks like excellent coverage from 11,500'. That is some very remote country. It was a beautiful flight, smooth and cool. I love my new APRS installation! Thanks for all the help getting it up and running Pete!