APRS Packet on Four

[G7CNF]

Hi.

Heard GW4UMX on 70.325 APRS today. Nice to see more happening on the band.

73

[GM4SLV]

I thought I'd let the 4m crowd know that a few of us in Shetland/Orkney have recently started playing with APRS. The Lerwick Radio Club (http://www.gm3zet.org) were given an inordinate number of ex Socttish Water low band FM1100s in all manner of conditions - from "brand new in box" to "forcefully removed from vehicles with crowbar".

In order to a)use them and b) not limit our local natter channel useage of 2m FM via GB3LU I thought I'd play with APRS on 4m rather than 144.8

I have set up one rig at home (GM4SLV IP90GG) and another on the site of GB3LU and the GB3LER 6m beacon (GM4SLV-3 IP90JD?) to act as a digipeater to link Lerwick to my home station which is acting as an IGate.

Currently there is only one active station in Shetland - ME as GM4SLV-9 mobile using a laptop in the car and Stuart GM4WMM in Orkney is set up but so far all traffic has been too weak to decode. Hopefully condx will improve...

I'm expecting a TinyTrak3 kit anytime now to make mobile tracking easier.

All the Shetland stations were thrown together using an FM1100 and an old PC running AGW Packet engine and UIView.

The 4m frequency is 70.4625MHz

I was going to use 70.4875 but my wireless access point produces some strange birdy on that QRG!

If you use APRS via the net and log in to the server ahubswe.net:14578 you might not see me - the standard UK wide filter cuts off about 10km from my house! If you supply the following filter line I'll appear.

filter r/55/-4/600 a/61/-3/59/0

My home station has a poor take off to the south and consists of FM1100 / 25W to Jaybeam folded dipole on chimney. The GM4SLV-3 digi is 25w to a mobile whip stuck on the repeater hut roof...not ideal...and may be upgraded if there's any more interest locally.

All are vertically polarized.

Something to listen for if you want to check propagation to the north!

Cheers,

John GM4SLV

[G4HYG]

I've spotted you on APRS (via the internet only unfortunately) a few times. It's good to see a new APRS "cluster" start up. Your digipeater seems to give good coverage of your mobile station even with a mag mount whip. Ross G6GVI gave a talk to the local Raynet group about 12 months ago and it started a rash of activity around Bolton and Manchester, all on 144.8 MHz.

I wonder if there is an "official" APRS frequency allocated in the bandplan for 4m?

73,

Chris G4HYG (MB7UBN APRS Igate NOV)