[OZAPRS] HF to VHF Confused

Fri Mar 27 19:33:58 EST 2009

and I may learn to type by then

:-)

On 27 Mar 2009, at 18:22, David and Justine Olsen wrote:

> Ray
>
> Once again thanks for your input and experience. Of course all my  
> coms have been voice. I have no experience with data. That is one  
> reason I am keen to have as many people as possible attemt to  
> access my igate on 40m, if it is in fact a worse choice, I will  
> know for sure before I set of and then we will have to igates on  
> 20m :-)
>
> David
>
>
> On 27 Mar 2009, at 17:48, Ray Wells wrote:
>
>> I would seem that our various experiences over the years are quite  
>> different and variable.
>>
>> Having travelled through the region David intends visiting I can  
>> only recommend 20m to get signals to populated areas. From  
>> experience gathered over a 10 year period on HF with the BBS,  
>> there is no question that 30m wins hands down for signal quality  
>> and reliability, with 20m a not so close second on some routes.  
>> I've been using 40m for the BBS for maybe 8 years now and anything  
>> over about 400km is generally unreliable. Those findings are, of  
>> course, somewhat variable, except for 30m which, on some routes  
>> provided 22 hour per day forwarding. There is also a big  
>> difference between a short position frame and multiple (short -  
>> paclen 64) frames required for bbs traffic.
>>
>> Give that Mother Nature can sometimes be unkind (we recently  
>> experienced many weeks where 40m was totally useless - the O.W.F.  
>> was about 3.5Mhz), the more options that are available, the better.
>>
>> The amateur service does, at least, have the option of alternative  
>> bands and that enhances the possibility of establishing contact.
>>
>> The IPS online prediction service, Grafix, is brilliant for  
>> predicting HF paths and optimum working frequency (OWF).
>>
>> Cheers ... Ray vk2tv
>>
>>
>> David and Justine Olsen wrote:
>>> Andrew
>>>
>>> Thanks for clarifying that.
>>>
>>> I wonder what range you did your testing over? I travel regularly  
>>> in Central Australia SA Deserts and the Kimberley and can talk to  
>>> home (Townsville) most days on 40m and 8MHz VKS.
>>> For me personally the ability to report my position at beginning  
>>> and end of day is more important than during midday, and I think  
>>> that would be the case for most people traveling away from VHF  
>>> regions. Just how many of us are standard calls I have no idea. I  
>>> am doing my advanced call study now, but 5 months of travel will  
>>> put a halt to that :-)
>>>
>>> Anyway it will be fun to see what happens if I run the iGate 24/7  
>>> while I am away, and have my vehicle reporting position for 5  
>>> months. I think not too many people would have the opportunity to  
>>> run a test like that one.
>>>
>>> I will be in Simpson Desert from May to mid June then Cape York  
>>> (20m will be useless Cape York to Townsville except from the very  
>>> tip) Then in the Gulf and Kimberley Regions until end Sept
>>>
>>>
>>> David
>>> VK4MDX
>>>
>>>
>>> On 27 Mar 2009, at 17:17, vk5ex.andrew at gmail wrote:
>>>
>>>> Hi David and all,
>>>>
>>>> In the past there were a few HF gateway stations about that  
>>>> were'nt directly connected to the internet. I have in the past  
>>>> been in this category myself however It would be nice to know,  
>>>> who / if there are any HF gates still running that dont have a  
>>>> direct connect to the aprs-is ?    Hence the recommended use of  
>>>> GATE,WIDE2-1 for HF mobiles.
>>>>
>>>> And .. we ( VK5 ) have also done a resaonable amount of testing  
>>>> on 40m for possible HF APRS use back a few years ago. Similar  
>>>> time frame to what Brian was alluding to in his email. At that  
>>>> time we didnt have much success either on 40m, alaways going  
>>>> back to 30m, with perhaps 20m as the second choice. I reckon the  
>>>> main problems were daytime noise levels at the HF gates, along  
>>>> with some funny multipath stuff. Anyway It'll be interesting to  
>>>> see how 40m performs for you this time around. Like you say it  
>>>> would probably be a good option in the long run.
>>>>
>>>> Regards .. Andrew .. VK5EX
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> ----- Original Message ----- From: "David and Justine Olsen"  
>>>> <davejust at bigpond.net.au>
>>>> To: "Australian APRS Users" <ozaprs at aprs.net.au>
>>>> Sent: Friday, March 27, 2009 13:45
>>>> Subject: [OZAPRS] HF to VHF Confused
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>> I note reference on the Australian aprs site to HF iGates  
>>>>> digipeating  to VHF. Not sure why?
>>>>>
>>>>> My plan for HF at least initially, was to simply receive on  
>>>>> 7036 MHz  and upload the data to an APRS server, so that HF  
>>>>> stations can be  tracked. This will be easy to do as it doesn't  
>>>>> require anything other  than my radio, antenna and computer  
>>>>> equipped with soundcard and  internet connection. Am I missing  
>>>>> something?
>>>>>
>>>>> David VK4MDX
>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>> Ozaprs mailing list
>>>>> Ozaprs at aprs.net.au
>>>>> http://aprs.net.au/mailman/listinfo/ozaprs
>>>>
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>>
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