The last couple of times I've been in the local area I've been noticing KL1SF on my APRS. APRS stands for Automatic Packet Reporting System. My radio sends out my location to a series of repeaters that broadcasts my location to other radios on the APRS system. You can also track the movement of APRS equipped units on the internet. This is a link to track my movements.
As I was saying, I had noticed KL1SF Sean recently. I first talked to Sean towards the end of winter. Sean lives up near the Grand Canyon but has family here in Lake Havasu. So we had talked while he was visiting, and all of a sudden his stations is beaconing my radio again. Which means he's close.
My radio will also show me how far away the other stations are, so once Sean was close enough I started calling out his station.
We made a quick contact but there where to many obstacles in the way to carry on a conversation, but another station replied to my call. KC7RJD Scott. Another truck driver. But the cool part was that I was in Topock. Right on the California Arizona border and Scott was in Searchlight. Driving, that's 70 miles. That's the longest direct contact I've made on 146.520 MHz. So pretty cool for me.
Then when I got into town my radio started beeping at me. My radio also allows me to text message through APRS and I got a message "hello from Scottsdale" Turns out W7SAZ George is friends with KL1SF Sean and wants me to say hi for him when I get the chance.
Guess George has been tracking Sean's movements and saw that my text enabled radio was close by so sent me the message, but that's pretty neat when you consider that we where a little over 200 miles apart.
Having fun with the Ham radio. But there's so much more equipment I want. But at least I can enjoy the equipment I have so far.
No comments:
Post a Comment