APRS Digipeater and iGate alternate frequencies

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dapaq2

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Hello Group,
It seems that most everyone who has an APRS digipeater or igate in operation has it on VHF 2 meters. I am curious if anyone has an APRS digipeater or iGate in operation on bands OTHER THAN 2 meter, such as 70 cm or 6 meters. From what I can see there seems to be no 70 cm digipeaters or igates in operation here in the midwest United States. Looking for any input information on this subject.
Thank you, Doug
 

AK9R

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Let's say you put up a digipeater or an i-Gate in the U.S. on any frequency other than 144.390 MHz. How would users know that it was available? What would compel them to switch from the nationally-accepted 2m APRS frequency, where they can find the maximum amount of digipeater and i-Gate resources, to any other frequency? And, in the case of a digipeater, let's say you choose an alternate frequency. Who is going to hear the packets that you digipeat?
 

dapaq2

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Northwest Indiana
Hello Group,
It seems that most everyone who has an APRS digipeater or igate in operation has it on VHF 2 meters. I am curious if anyone has an APRS digipeater or iGate in operation on bands OTHER THAN 2 meter, such as 70 cm or 6 meters. From what I can see there seems to be no 70 cm digipeaters or igates in operation here in the midwest United States. Looking for any input information on this subject.
Thank you, Doug
 

vagrant

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Hello Group,
It seems that most everyone who has an APRS digipeater or igate in operation has it on VHF 2 meters. I am curious if anyone has an APRS digipeater or iGate in operation on bands OTHER THAN 2 meter, such as 70 cm or 6 meters. From what I can see there seems to be no 70 cm digipeaters or igates in operation here in the midwest United States. Looking for any input information on this subject.
Thank you, Doug
Most APRS users go with the default, so I setup an iGate that monitors that. If there was a big push for 70 cm and 6m I may setup an iGate on there as well. At this point if I setup something on those bands it would be for my own testing.

Specific to your question, while there is a APRSWiki Frequencies - APRSWiki I am unsure if those alternates are used in my area. Still, a UHF frequency also makes sense to me because of the antennas on handhelds, or if one wanted to use a low profile UHF antenna on their vehicle in a reasonably populated and digipeater covered area. Six meters seems reasonable for instances and terrain where that wavelength would be suitable.
 

n5ims

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In our area some groups use an alternate frequency (generally near 144.39) and put up a digipeater and iGate on that frequency. This is always as part of a special event (marathon, long bike race, hot air balloon launch & tracking, etc.) and only active during the event. It's setup to allow the event team to track the hams that are working it without the "noise" from normal APRS operation. The iGate is normally only setup to allow hams not working the event (and don't know the alternate frequency) to monitor the event over the internet or on their phones. The public will see the event traffic as if it was on the normal frequency since the iGate dumps all reports together in the database.
 

N2AL

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I agree with having a 70 cm digipeater. It allows an operator to use 2 m without having to worry with missing traffic when the APRS beacons. BUT the downside is that 70 cm APRS is uncommon and would not be widely used, or accepted.

To the OP, I asked this question a few years back and received a similar response. Although some users liked the idea, it never left the ground.
 

AK9R

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In our area some groups use an alternate frequency (generally near 144.39) and put up a digipeater and iGate on that frequency. This is always as part of a special event (marathon, long bike race, hot air balloon launch & tracking, etc.) and only active during the event.
Bob Bruninga WB4APR has made the suggestion in the past to set up a digipeater near an event site with the standard 600 kHz input/output shift used for 2m repeaters. In other words, the digi would listen on 144.990 MHz and transmit on 144.390 MHz. You then tell all your field stations associated with the event to configure their radios to transmit on 144.990 MHz and receive on 144.390 MHz. By doing this, the field operators are not isolated from the rest of the APRS network for position reports from other stations, weather, or bulletins, but their position reports have a heck of a lot better chance of making it into the APRS network because they won't be transmitting on the busy national APRS frequency.
 
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