Appomattox?

[n8jsn]

Hi All:

I know this sounds like a strange request.. But..

My wife is going to be training in Appomattox near the holiday lake camp grounds in a few weeks for Search and Rescue with our Blood hound. From last years experience cell coverage is very limited in the area and they discourage you from using the land line at the campgrounds unless it's an emergency.

So, the old fall back of Amateur Radio comes very handy in these situations.

I am looking to find a repeater with either echolink or irlp close enough to hit the camp grounds so she can call and say hi at night. I'd love to know that I could see her on APRS as well (She has a tmd710A in the jeep and a VX8R she carries in her pack)

I think there is a repeater in Lynchburg but I cannot confirm that it will hit the area she will be in.

Any help would be appreciated.

Thank You

Jeff N8JSN

 

[shumadine]

I'm not trying to be short with you, but you are making life too complicated. If she is anywhere in the Commonwealth of Virgina, she will get a Verizon wireless signal.

 

[trainman111]

Yes, I've stayed at the campground there and I also have Verizon and can confirm there is signal.

 

[n8jsn]

She has ATT but, it you say Verizon will work I'll go grab a prepay Verizon phone tomorrow morning.

I called the state park and they told me that they didn't have cell coverage on site.. I know last year when she went one of the other girls had alltel and they had to drive about 2-3 miles from the holiday lake 4-h camp to get coverage.

 

[randy6800]

My g/f lives just a few miles from the park on rt 24 and cell coverage is very poor in many areas, she has found US Cellular to be the best service, but even it has a lot of dead spots. I would not depend on cell phones for commincations in this area.

 

[K4NNW]

Try this.
Amateur radio KC4RBA repeater information on 145.370 in lynchburg, Virginia
145.37, -600KHz offset, 186.2Hz PL tone. That tone seems a little off, unless the owner changed it. That repeater is at Electronic Specialists in Forest, VA and the guy who owns said shop also owns the repeater. I'm not sure if she'll be able to get into it from Holliday Lake, since I've never tried it there. There's also very little traffic on that machine, save my old neighbor Paul in Concord.
As for APRS, that's a shot in the dark. She *may* get digipeated by one of the W4RAT digi's (-8, methinks), and I don't know what sort of digi activity is going in Lynchburg these days either.
Now then, I just need to hide this thread from my roommate, who is crazy for bloodhounds.
73,
Kenny

 

[rki616]

Kenny, tnx for the info. This is getting to be a yearly trip for members of our K9 unit which she belongs to. I'm going to program that repeater into her radio and a few other team members radios to see if they can get it or not.

Jeff

 

[jim202]

I'm not trying to be short with you, but you are making life too complicated. If she is anywhere in the Commonwealth of Virgina, she will get a Verizon wireless signal.

Be careful what you say about the Verizon coverage. I have been in a few places where the coverage
was far from being fully usable. I don't mean way off the beaten path up in the mountains. In my travels
around the country side, I do visit a number of the public safety dispatch centers. Most of them do
have some sort of coverage. But if you get outside the town proper, you had better have a satellite
phone.

 

[W2NJS]

There are so many amateur repeaters in the Central Virginia area that it's very difficult to know where to start in evaluating them. Lynchburg? Six or eight, maybe more. It was once the home of the GE two-way business so there is a large legacy of ham activity there. In every direction from Appomattox you are literally surrounded by repeaters. If I were trying to figure out the answer to this question I'd start with an ARRL Repeater Directory of the latest annual edition. The ten bucks or so that it costs is well worth it. Many of the area repeaters are on mountain tops, and with an average effective radius of 40 miles means they can cover up to 5,000 square miles. Some do more and some do less, but many cover a lot more than 5,000 square miles.

 

[W4UVV]

Appomattox APRS

Try this.
Amateur radio KC4RBA repeater information on 145.370 in lynchburg, Virginia
145.37, -600KHz offset, 186.2Hz PL tone. That tone seems a little off, unless the owner changed it. That repeater is at Electronic Specialists in Forest, VA and the guy who owns said shop also owns the repeater. I'm not sure if she'll be able to get into it from Holliday Lake, since I've never tried it there. There's also very little traffic on that machine, save my old neighbor Paul in Concord.
As for APRS, that's a shot in the dark. She *may* get digipeated by one of the W4RAT digi's (-8, methinks), and I don't know what sort of digi activity is going in Lynchburg these days either.
Now then, I just need to hide this thread from my roommate, who is crazy for bloodhounds.
73,
Kenny

The last time I was through Appomattox using my Kenwood 700 and a Diamond Dual band roof mounted mag mount antenna I was on the west side of Appomattox and probably halfway to Lynchburg before I got a digpeater hit. Unless things have changed Rt. 460 from Dinwiddie Co. through Nottoway Co. Prince Edward Co. and Appomattox Co. are an APRS wasteland. APRS in the Appomattox area would be "iffy" but worth a try. I believe my APRS signal was received by one of the Lynchburg area mountain top digipeaters.