APRS SCORE REPORTING FOR KLONDIKE DERBY 26 Jan 08 -------------------------------------------------------------------- Had another great Scout Event using APRS D7's for troop reporting. For this year's Klondike Derby (Four Rivers District Maryland) there were 17 event stations and 50 scout troops. We were able to field over half of the stations with D7's for score data entry(10). In an afterthought, we could have done at least 3 more for a total of 13 with data entry if we had thought to use D700's in some cars. Using the D7's substantially reduced voice traffic and transcription errors, and repeats, while providing error free data recording at the HQ tent. See http://www.ew.usna.edu/~bruninga/aprsevent.html This is APRS at its best! Not only did the APRS data entry stations not have to busy up the 146.43 voice net, but we operated on 445.925 with our data to avoid any QRM to the 2m voice traffic -AND- we could also chat on the same UHF channel for data coordination. Further, every D7 operator could be tracked on the main APRS map back at HQ as operators moved around the event -BUT- without the encumberance of any GPS's, wires, or fussy cables. We prepared a LAT/LON grid on the event map, and every location in the entire square mile venue could be entered by just dialing in the last 2 hundredths digit of LAT or LONG. These were "scouts" and dads by the way, who should know how to look at a map and estimated their position. To make that even easier, we prepared the four XX/YY digits for each of the 17 event stations in advance, so that if an operator changed locations, he only had to adjust those 4 digits to update his position. RESULTS: It worked great! Net control could leisurely look at the incoming scores on the D700 control panel mounted to his clipboard, and pass them to the score keepers. The contrast with Voice reporting is that each voice report, interrupts the netcon's chain of thought and the voice net everywhere, and demands immediate attention, while with the data messages, they arrive in the background, and can be viewed by Netcon at HIS convenience. Even the newly trained D7 HT operators said it was great (after they got the hang of it). Of the 10 D7 operators, only 4 had ever used a D7 before. Training was 5 minutes on the spot when they were handed a D7 and a gouge sheet. LESSONS LEARNED: 1) Don't plan on the NETCON with the D700 on his clipboard at HQ trying to use it also as his voice rig... Duh... everytime he might decide to read some messages, a voice call might come in, and the PTT bumps him off the message screen. 2) Don't abbreviate Cub Scout and Boy Scout station as CS# and BS#. They sound the same on the air. Call them BS# and WS# (for Weblos). 3) Don't assume the battery on your 10 year old D7 is any good. Yours truely showed up with 5 overnight-charged D7's, but two of them were dead in the first 15 minutes. 4) The few other ops that had D7's also had D700's in their cars. We should have realized that the D700's could just as easily been used for data entry at those stations, thus freeing up their D7's for use elsewhere. Score reporting is only a one-time event every 45 minutes. Easy enough to walk over to the car and enter the data on the Mic Keys. 5) The D7 is ideal for this application. Operating dual band, it was able to do both the 146.43 voice net and the 445 APRS data net at the same time. But to save power, either band could be toggled off when not needed with the DUAL key. Or both could be on for voice but the TNC toggled off between entries. 6) Owners of D700's and D7's need to learn how to send, receive and edit messages. These radios (and APRS) are much more than just vehicle tracking! On the web page above, we had even prepared an APRSdos map so that detailed tracking of multiple objects was possible. APRS, its not just vehicle tracking! Bob, WB4APR