aprs becoming less popular / empty some places

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K4APR

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Very poor ht coverage on the strip. I ended up using aprsdroid/aprsis to put out a couple of packets this weekend.

That's funny, I was thinking the same thing. It has been a couple of years since I was out there, but I brought my TH-D72 with me a small mag mount. I took it with me on a walk down the strip and couldn't get a single digipeat. It wasn't until I took a drive to Hoover Dam that I finally got a hit about half way there. Coverage was very sparse.

Compared to when I was out there almost a decade ago and APRS was booming. Byon had a TinyTrak in just about every ham's car out there and the map was filled.

Even Scott isn't putting most of his effort into the OpenTracker anymore. It's mostly LED hula hoops and simplex repeaters for him.

I know the demand on my company for APRS hardware has fallen away.

Interesting how things change.
 

kc4jgc

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Mar 7, 2004
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Virginia Beach, VA
APRS is more useful for public service or emergency ops than for every day usage.

I personally like the idea of using APRS as a "dumb tracker" in cars. I've read accounts in the past in which an APRS equipped vehicle was located quickly after being stolen and the victim showing local PD where the vehicle was on the computer screen.

I once ran a UI-View APRS station when I lived in Norfolk. With UI-View, I ran an add-on called UI-Signpost, which, triggered a temporary object when a mobile beaconed in certain locations on the local interstates indicating speed. Since I moved to an over 55 apartment community, I can no longer run a station; a detailed description remains on my website UI-Signpost.

I also ran another UI-View add-on that a station could query my station for local info for just about anything one could want to include in a database. I had temporary objects such as repeater locations and frequencies, hospital locations as well as local TIS transmitters. A "tiny web" object(s) would appear on the screen along with a short description of the object(s).
 

wd9ewk

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Jan 24, 2014
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Arizona USA
That's funny, I was thinking the same thing. It has been a couple of years since I was out there, but I brought my TH-D72 with me a small mag mount. I took it with me on a walk down the strip and couldn't get a single digipeat. It wasn't until I took a drive to Hoover Dam that I finally got a hit about half way there. Coverage was very sparse.

I was in Las Vegas at the end of April 2016 for a ham convention. I had my TH-D72A HT and a mobile whip antenna on a trunk mount. I had no problems being picked up by digipeaters on the mountaintops around the Las Vegas Valley. Even on the Strip. The http://aprs.fi web site picked me up as I drove around there.

An HT and normal/short duckie along the Strip might not work well with all of the tall buildings, but I didn't need to use an amplifier with my HT or consider buying a TM-D710G or a Yaesu APRS-ready mobile. That is a benefit for those of us out west - mountaintop digipeaters that cover large areas.

Compared to when I was out there almost a decade ago and APRS was booming. Byon had a TinyTrak in just about every ham's car out there and the map was filled.

Some of the change may be from the APRS-ready transceivers from Kenwood and - now - Yaesu. When the transceiver has the TNC (at least APRS functionality) and GPS in one box, it makes APRS a lot easier than in the past when you had to put 2 or 3 components (radio, TNC, GPS) together to run APRS.

I still see lots of APRS activity when I travel around Arizona, California, and southern Nevada. Many are using APRS for tracking vehicles or individuals on foot. I also see APRS activity on the orbiting digipeaters on the International Space Station and the NO-84 satellite. For the orbiting digipeaters, APRS messages are used to make exchanges for contacts, as well as transmitting our locations so we are seen across the country. I regularly use my Kenwood HTs (TH-D72A, TH-D74A) to work these digipeaters and make contacts. Activity from the orbiting digipeaters will make it onto http://aprs.fi via gateway stations, as well as two other sites:

http://ariss.net/ (for ISS)

http://pcsat.aprs.org/ (for NO-84, and - if operational - NO-44)

73!
 
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