2004-05-22: APRS at the March of Dimes

We had APRS running from several locations at the March of Dimes Walk-A-Thon Saturday. Check out the map below. . .

There is a screen capture of the screen here: http://66.236.93.102/kd7lrj/APRS/2004-05-22%20March%20of%20Dimes.gif

The 8 locations running APRS were:

MICC – In the parking lot at Seven Peaks. This station received reports from the trackers and displayed their locations in real time to the Net Control Station.

Rover 1 – This tracker was sending packets, but we were unable to decode them due to a technical problem.

Rover 2 – (In BLUE on the screen capture) This tracker followed the first walkers around the course in a vehicle.

Rover 3 – (In RED) This tracker followed the last walkers around the course on a bicycle.

Medic – (In PURPLE) This tracker drove around the course in a vehicle.

Rest 5 – (In GREEN) This tracker drove around the course to rest stop 5 from the start/finish.

BYU – The ‘Star’ in the center of the map. This station is on top of the Wilkinson Center at BYU. It was used to relay signals from the trackers around the course to the MICC (which could not hear all of the trackers directly). Thanks to the BYU Amateur Radio Club (and KD4AHM) for putting up this DigiPeater and allowing us to use it.

KD7LRJ – Located in Lindon, this station listened to and logged all of the traffic from the event. It also copied it to the internet stream for FindU.com. The screen capture above was taken from this station.

While this event did not NEED the functionality of APRS to come off well, I believe that we gained very valuable experience! We will be using APRS at future events and I hope more of us can become familiar with it and perhaps even add an APRS tracker to their arsenal of gadgets. 🙂

…Doug KD7LRJ
kd7lrj@arrl.net
KD7LRJ’s APRS Web Stuff