Packet APRS propagation

[vagrant]

Looking through the June logs today and found a 900+ mile beacon received from Texas to here in central California from a digipeater. A new record for my RTL-SDR v3 dongle receiver, Raspberry Pi and a tram dual band vertical going through a cable TV splitter.

 

[N4DJC]

Raw packet data? How many hops?

 

[vagrant]

No hops, it was from the digipeater itself and definitely not someone who had the wrong GPS info. Others may get that kind of distance and more all the time. For me it was new.

 

[chrismol1]

There's certainly some very interesting stuff going on this cycle. Is very fortunate we have the technology to see this on the internet and other medias

 

[frazpo]

Looking through the June logs today and found a 900+ mile beacon received from Texas to here in central California from a digipeater. A new record for my RTL-SDR v3 dongle receiver, Raspberry Pi and a tram dual band vertical going through a cable TV splitter.

Are you running a receive only I-gate? If so what Pi image are you using for your SDR setup?

 

[vagrant]

Yes, RX only and I am using Raspbian 9 "stretch" with a Pi 3B. The APRS stuff is handled by Direwolf version 1.5. I never updated it as it works. The only issue with Raspbian is the memory issue and having to reboot it at least once a month, but that's just a cron job.

 

[k7ng]

Unusual propagation all over, it seems. Ham 2M repeaters and some cochannel PSB heard up here in OR, while I was mobile.

 

[k7ng]

I meant 'heard stations from central CA'.

 

[vagrant]

Many repeaters and digipeaters around here have an advantage as they are typically 3400-6400 feet ASL and the valley floor is around 400’ ASL.

 

[k7ng]

Grew up in the NoCA valley.
From 1500' - 3000' mountains in my present vicinity (OR mid-coast) I generally don't hear CA repeaters on a mobile setup, and most assuredly not from the Delta region (Mt Oso, Mt Diablo, and I think something over in the foothills on 2M, and some CAL FIRE 151 MHz from the same area) were heard yesterday.

 

[dwhit29689]

VHF Propagation Map

aprs.mennolink.org

Check often...sometimes the "clouds" are H U G E