[Xastir] APRS for Bike Tours

[Joseph M. Durnal]

I've tried to get APRS involved in some events, but I find the hard
part is getting folks to volunteer :).

Used xastir at the finish line of a 40 mile hike, had a few other APRS
stations along the way.  I hiked the last 20 miles myself, carrying a
D7 w/ GPS.

http://cryptojoe.blogspot.com/2009/05/twenty-mile-hike.html

73 de Joseph Durnal NE3R

On Fri, Jun 19, 2009 at 7:33 PM, Jason Godfrey<godfreja at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hello.
>
> I was just browsing the list archives, and saw this question from Mike
> Benonis from about two weeks ago:
>
>> By the way, as a more general question to those who have used APRS for
>> bike tours/races, does anyone have any tips for a smooth event?
>
> I'm not sure if it is too late for him, but since we just had the
> Minnesota MS150 last weekend I thought I would comment.
>
> In past years we've had APRS beacons on all of our sag wagons and few
> other key vehicles and a full APRS station at net control. This year
> we decided to expand and add a full APRS station at each rest stop as
> well as on the Incident Response Team vehicles (the IRTs may of had a
> full station past years, I forget.) Another key decision was was to
> add a dedicated APRS op to net control.
>
> The expanded use APRS helped quite a bit, especially in the view of
> our longtime net control supervisor. He felt it reduced his workload
> noticeably. Using APRS messaging for lower priority messages kept
> traffic off of our UHF voice backbone. The use of objects to track
> rider pickups, incidents, and other issues helped with situational
> awareness, and in the case of IRT's - finding where we sent them.
>
> A couple of points of things that can help for a smooth event:
>
> 1. Training and testing before the event. Make sure the equipment
> works and the operators who are going to be using it know how to.
>
> 2. Check digipeater coverage. We had to add in some for the event.
> (And unfortunately one wasn't working, which impacted coverage on
> Sunday.)
>
> 3. For net control at least - Listen to both RF and IGATE if you can.
> Sometimes messages/objects come in one interface and not the other.
>
> 4. Having a dedicated APRS op at net control is very helpful. The
> person(s) running the voice net is too busy to use APRS effectively by
> himself.
>
> 5. Use APRS for more then just tracking vehicles. Objects and
> messaging are useful.
>
> I think that covers the highlights.
>
> - Jason, N0RPM
>
> --
> I have learned to use the word 'impossible' with the greatest caution.
>  -- Wernher von Braun
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