[OZAPRS] APRS sat settings

Darryl Smith darryl at radio-active.net.au
Thu Nov 10 20:29:31 AEDT 2022


An update from me… and slightly off topic.

I just finished an eight month job in various parts of NSW, predominantly doing mobile microwave links. I will say more about it in about 18 months when the project hits the news.

This would require us to set up multiple satellite links, normally in areas without good mobile coverage. We used a 1.2m dish and a Starlink. Both had advantages and disadvantages

The 1.2m dish was better for uploads when you wanted certainty, but the bandwidth was horribly limited. It was also large and not cheap. And rain events would cause speed issues. The exclusion zone did not help either.

Starlink was bloody amazing. Cheap and easy to set up. Once we had it in RV mode because we were moving all the time. Connectors were not designed to be plugged and unplugged multiple times a day, but it was quite reliable apart from that.

The bit that amazed me was the quality of mobile phone calls over wifi over Starlink. They are bloody good. Anyone doing bush trips should consider getting a Starlink. They have a special until the end of the year for about $450.

The one thing though… and Michaela put me onto this… there is no coverage over a lot of the north of the country.

But when it works, it is amazing.

Darryl

On 10 Nov 2022, at 7:06 pm, Michaela Wheeler <aprs at michaela.lgbt> wrote:


From our travels in VK6(and 3,4,5,8) recently 30m APRS worked a lot better than 40m just due to the number of igates. You'll probably do a lot better than us as we were using a sand flag as an antenna that changed SWR depending on far bent over it was.

I'd highly recommend setting up your system to listen for APRS packets as well. It's really nice to be able to message back forth and see where other roamers are. (it's kind of sad how few APRS setups actually listen for packets)

In some of the more remote areas we ended up digipeating HF<->UHF to allow us to have QSOs with people across Australia while we were hiking. Some details here : https://sprocketfox.io/xssfox/2022/07/29/aprs/?ref=footer

--
  Michaela Wheeler
  michaela at michaela.lgbt<mailto:michaela at michaela.lgbt>


On Thu, 10 Nov 2022, at 6:23 PM, Bob Cameron wrote:

Hi Graeme

Agreed, but I have one multiband HF/VHF/UHF rig in the vehicle and the HF antenna requires manual tap adjustment. I currently auto switch between voice QSO's on 30m and APRS beaconing. As I move between Ceduna and Norseman I may even change to 20m for voice and only APRS beacon to the sats. I could also use the cellsites I am passing, but don't want to cheat! (hihi)

Cheers

On 10/11/22 17:42, Graeme wrote:
A fallback using 40m might be more reliable than satellite.

Graeme VK2HFG

On 10/11/2022 4:47 pm, Bob Cameron wrote:
Just wanted to check this. One never knows how dated Internet info is.

I successfully beacon on 30m on my VK travels (permanently on road). I am about to wander over to VK6. The 30m will be a good test of the usual VK5 IGate I get into as it seems there is no 30m RX/igate in VK6.

I do however want to setup a fallback to use satellite and wanted to check if;

VIA=ARISS,SGATE,WIDE2-1

is valid. Would someone please verify this for me?

Tnx Bob VK2YQA-12

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