[Xastir] New user..and thanks..

[James Ewen]

On 11/18/06, Curt Mills <archer at eskimo.com> wrote:
>
> > How much creativity do I have available to me to create a custom map?
>
> You can create your own maps in any of the formats that Xastir can
> use.  If using images, you can create a large one, tile it into
> smaller pieces, and set up a .GEO file for each one.  Xastir can
> then load the ones of interest as it needs to.


Just further to what Curt has said above...

You can use the track map from the website as a base map, all you need to do
is tell Xastir where the corners of the image are in relation to the face of
the Earth (the .geo file). You could also capture the satellite photo from
Google Earth, and create a .geo file for that image.

My preference would be to capture a large image (2000 pixels across or so)
from Google Earth, and use that.You would be able to see a fairly decent
image of the track when zoomed in, or back out to watch the full track.

How many safety vehicles are you tracking? Crash Trucks, Ambulances, Tow
Trucks, etc? Are you looking at time slotting them, or having them use
SmartBeaconing with rapid update parameters when in motion? Smart Beaconing
would have only the responding vehicles making noise, but could have the
occasional packet collision. Time slotting would have the packets running
all the time, with constant monitoring of operational status of each
tracker. With low power handheld radios, you shouldn't have to worry about
current drain too much. The safety vehicles will probably be running enough
to never worry about killing the battery.

I'd probably run timeslotting with every safety vehicle reporting once per
minute as a minimum. I'm not sure if the OpenTracker is able to sync to the
GPS time embedded in the NMEA strings or not. You would want to keep the
time slotting accurate. Depending on the number of safety vehicles, you
might be able to do 30 second updates. (This is on a private frequency, not
144.390... don't get your panties in a bunch!)

It sure would be great to have a realtime tactical map of the location of
all safety assets at all times. This is a perfect example of textbook use of
APRS as a real time tactical display tool. I've run safety net control for a
couple Cascar events here in Edmonton, as well as main control for the Champ
Car Grand Prix of Edmonton. I've used pins/magnets for keeping track of
assets, but there's nothing like having that automated for you. The Champ
cars all have transponders onboard that get picked up by trackside
recorders, and then their computer system dead reckons the position between
trackside recorders. That gives a great view of what's happening on track.
With APRS on the Safety crews, and Xastir dead reckoning their movements,
you'll have just about the same thing.

BTW, beautiful facility! I LOVE turn 5! That must give a great sphincter
muscle workout to all the drivers. The rest of the course is pretty wild as
well. What a workout for the bike riders!

James
VE6SRV