[Xastir] Balloon tracking

[James Ewen]

>Well, I used Xastir in ballon tracking yesterday.
>Another guy that was tracking the balloon was
>using APRS+SA. I'm envious.

As Jason said, what maps did you have available?

Xastir tops my list of APRS clients because of the maps available. In the 
last year or so, I have been able to go from virtually zero maps available 
for my area (Edmonton, Alberta, Canada) to having street level mapping.

WinAPRS gave me some very rudimentary line maps that sometimes had major 
highways in the general area of where they should be.

I changed over to UI-View because of the much better implementation, but was 
very disappointed in the maps used. Static image maps are horrible when 
chasing a balloon, as you have to have images of the area before you set out 
on the chase. I find you never have the image you really want. I was able to 
add DOS/WinAPRS maps with an add on program.

With Xastir, I now have street level vector data of every road in Alberta, 
as well as topographic maps, and aerial photos of the area as well.

You can add an object at the last known location if you missed data, and get 
reports from others.

One thing that I still have to do outside of Xastir is create a 3 
dimensional representation of the area with RadioMobile. In an area with 
lots of terrain variation, it's very nice to be able to get a bird's-eye 
view in 3D. This is especially handy when showing the maps to those who are 
not familiar with topographic maps.

James
VE6SRV