[Xastir] More system questions

[Tom Russo]

On Wed, Jun 27, 2007 at 05:52:42PM -0500, we recorded a bogon-computron collision of the <RiverRidge at CenturyTel.net> flavor, containing:
>  Thanks Tom....  Yes... We live in the undeveloped boonies.  But then, we 
>  like it that way <grin>.

Nod.  It's that way out where I live, too.  The digi that's nearest me
is the only thing I can hear directly, and when it can't hear me I get 
nowhere even with 5W.

>  The one digipeater that is in out county is AAOKU-WL and 4min.  What does 
>  that tell us?

That's not a digi.  The -WL things are winlink nodes advertising their
presence.  The nearest digi to you is more like 20 miles away.

The 4min notation means it was last heard four minutes prior to my taking that
snapshot.

>  Tom Russo wrote:
> > On Wed, Jun 27, 2007 at 03:37:52PM -0600, we recorded a bogon-computron 
> > collision of the <russo at bogodyn.org> flavor, containing:
> >   
> >> You could also set up an Xastir station to listen using an APRS-IS server
> >> (nternet only) fairly quickly, and look for the digis on your map.  To
> >> do this, you'd want to  use a filter that specified "r/45/-92/500" or 
> >> something to give a nice big range of stations near you.  I'm actually 
> >> looking at such a thing right now.  In the few seconds I've been watching,
> >> I see that there are quite a few digipeaters, but they are all advertising
> >> fairly short ranges (through their PHG settings, which may or may not 
> >> really
> >> indicate their effectiveness, as it's a very crude measure).
> >>
> >> I'll take a screen shot of your area viewed in xastir in an hour or so 
> >> after
> >> I've captured more data.  I'll put it on my web site and post here with 
> >> the
> >> URL.
> >>     
> >
> > I think I've got all that I can get, since I've already heard from the
> > digis that are closest to you.  I have a snapshot, it's at
> >   <http://www.swcp.com/~russo/imgs/wiscsnap.png>
> >
> > Look at the pale green circles --- they represent the digipeaters at the 
> > center
> > (where the star is) and their advertised ranges.  The southeast portion of
> > Wisconsin appears saturated with digis with overlapping ranges, but your
> > western portion is thinner.
> >
> > It looks like your county is pretty much without a local digipeater at all.
> > The nearest digis to the location you sent are advertising ranges that 
> > don't quite cover the distance between your location and theirs.  You might
> > have trouble hitting those digis during SAR missions, but you'll want to 
> > try out a tracker in your normal operation area before concluding that.
> > You could get a single D7 radio, wire it up to a GPS, and use a path like
> > WIDE2-2 to see if you get digipeated --- you could monitor the whole thing
> > on findu without having any other infrastructure to see if you're making it
> > to a digipeater and an Igate.  Not a solid test (you could be reaching a 
> > digi
> > but not an igate), but you could still tell if you're getting digipeated 
> > because
> > the D7 would report when it hears its own packets back.  
> > If your local infrastructure isn't built up enough then you might need some 
> > assistance to get a new digi installed nearer to your operations area, or
> > you could deploy a portable digipeater on missions --- yet another piece of
> > equipment to purchase and maintain, but perhaps easier than getting a 
> > full-time
> > digi set up so that it reaches where you need it.
> >
> > Curt likes the idea of using Tracker2 units to deploy a bunch of 
> > man-portable
> > digis into mission areas.  I'm still skeptical, but it could work well.  
> > How's
> > that going, Curt? (ignoring the fact that Tracker2 is still not ready for
> > prime time, so doesn't answer Jim's needs yet)
> >
> >   
> 
>  -- 
>  Jim & Peggy Tolbert
> 
>  RiverRidge at CenturyTel.net
> 
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-- 
Tom Russo    KM5VY   SAR502   DM64ux          http://www.swcp.com/~russo/
Tijeras, NM  QRPL#1592 K2#398  SOC#236 AHTB#1 http://kevan.org/brain.cgi?DDTNM
"And, isn't sanity really just a one-trick pony anyway? I mean all you get is
 one trick, rational thinking, but when you're good and crazy, oooh, oooh,
 oooh, the sky is the limit!"  --- The Tick