WHO
The Tulsa Digital Radio Club (KT5DIG) will sponsor 2015’s first OK Statewide APRS net at 1300 CDT on Saturday, April 11, 2015. The frequency will be the nationwide APRS calling frequency, 144.390.MHz The lead net controller will be Scott Haley KD5NJR, operating the station KD5NJR-6 from the greater Tulsa area. During the net, he will use a variety of paths in an attempt to eventually achieve statewide coverage over the course of the net.
WHAT
This is an opportunity to exercise your APRS station by sending and receiving APRS messages as well as the more common position reports. Oklahoma hams are encouraged to monitor the net activity and provide reception reports of stations heard on 144.390 to Scott atkd5njr@gmail.com.
Scott will monitor the Tulsa Amateur Radio Club linked system and the DMR State-wide talk group during the net.
WHEN
The net will start at 1pm Central Daylight Time.
It will last for about 1 hour depending on the number of checkins.
WHY
APRS is a convenient mode for the exchange of short messages and position reports. In particular it is used by the storm spotting community and the NWS. The APRS mode is also used on HF and via satellites. Balloons and other experiments use the format too. It’s an interesting skill to have in your amateur radio toolbox.
HOW
You can participate in the net in a variety of methods
1) Those with APRS trackers can activate them and confirm with net control via voice.
2) Those with the APRS-enabled HTs (Kenwood Th-d7, d72, Yaesu VX-8, etc) can formulate a brief message to kd5njr-6
3) Home stations may participate too.
A typical home station would consist of a radio , computer and either a TNC or rig interface with software modem. Popular APRS software include UI-VIEW32 and APRSIS-32. Many Linux users use XASTIR.
Those without a TNC may look into the UZ7HO or Direwolf software modems. AGWPE is also a popular software modem. They use the computer’s soundcard to carry out some of the TNC functions.
Hams may also refer to the KT5DIG website : tulsadigitalradioclub.
G4ILO has good APRSIS32 primers.
Good luck and see you on the air.
73
No comments:
Post a Comment