[OZAPRS] Higher beacon rate HF versus VHF?

[David and Justine Olsen]

And you did it with 600mW.
Thanks for the info, most helpful

On 30 Mar 2009, at 05:44, Jack Chomley wrote:

> At 11:00 PM 3/29/2009, you wrote:
>> Jacks success at being received by my HF iGate with 600mW, complaints
>> about QRM etc got me thinking about beacon rates for HF vs VHF.
>>
>> Given the low number of HF stations, the vastness of Australia, the
>> vagaries of HF and the fact that HF stations do not digipeat to HF,
>> and perhaps if I go on, shouldn't digipeat to VHF, I believe beacon
>> rates on HF should be higher than on VHF. What do others think?
>>
>> David
>> VK4MDX
>
> David,
> I have been using a beacon rate of 2 minutes on my motorcycle  
> system running 6 watts on 30m with an Icom 703, SCS DSP TNC, Garmin  
> 16-HVS  GPS.  The performance has been good over the last 12  
> months, many of the beacons were missed, but I put that down to the  
> low power and antenna waving around while mobile.
> Back in January, I changed the transmit format of the APRS data  
> frames to the compressed format and my "hit" rate immediately went  
> up. Probably because of the shorter packets, meant less chance of  
> them being corrupted.
> See my Jan 15th '09 track log....
> http://aprs.fi/?call=VK4JRC-15&dt=1231977600&mt=m&z=11&timerange=3600
> Since the hit rate has gone up, I can now lower the beacon rate and  
> still get a good track record.
> Bike here:
> http://www.radiotelemetry.net/html/hf_mobile_aprs.html
> Personally, I think that IF there are enough IGATES, there is  
> probably no reason to have a high beacon rate, nor need to run  
> anymore than about 20 watts, but the secret of success is to use  
> compressed format APRS data.
> Yesterdays test also proved that when there was QRM on the  
> frequency, I managed to get some hits in between the contest  
> stations, that were just off the 40m frequency. Shorter frames,  
> less chance of corruption ;-)
> My antenna for yesterday's test was a Buddipole vertical, setup on  
> an 8ft tripod, in the back yard, the counterpoise was 1 electric  
> fence wire above ground radial, deployed towards the South. The  
> vertical element a Versa-T,  1 arm section, coil, with 5 section  
> shock-corded military whip, on top of the coil.
> See Buddipole:
> http://www.buddipole.com/
>
> 73  Jack VK4JRC
>
>
>
>
>
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