Due to a family emergency, I’m sitting down close to the beach instead of being atop a mountain summit playing with packet gear setting up a Georgia-to-Maine APRS network. Each year, hams scale mountains and temporarily setup digipeaters in an effort to pass a "golden packet" along the ~2,200 miles (~3,500km) Appalachian Trail. The hope is to permanently establish digipeaters along the trail, on a separate frequency, to support hikers along the trail. Since I’m watching all of the action from a distance I’m able to take notes based on my view from afar…
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What would happen if we used horizontal yagi antennas for the backbone; using tropospheric propagation instead of the ground path?
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Since Hawksbill is in the Shenandoah National Park there is little chance of us getting a station permanently installed here. What’s is near by that will provide both a link back to Apple Orchard and Maryland Mountains and provide LAN coverage along the AT in Shenandoah?
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There is an alternative to Hawksbill. Where is it?
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How about using an ALTNET address for this event?
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The linear network is fragile. If any one station goes down the entire path up and down is broken. Generally, APRS is mesh and would otherwise route around an outage.
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Use APRX, or similar, to provide both standard APRS and special APRS digipeating with possible bi-directional i-gates and linking between networks.
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Maybe provide weather stations at digipeaters, not propagating throughout the network, to provide information to hikers.
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Use compressed/mic-e packets wherever possible.