APRS Test

Athens Marathon APRS Test - On April 10, 2005, the Athens County Amateur Radio Association ran a test of utilizing Automatic Position Reporting System (APRS) to track the lead runner. APRS packets were generated from a bike mobile operator using a GPS connected through a Tiny Tracker TNC and his HT transmitting through a bike mounted whip antenna. The packets were logged by the Net Control Station along with another operator and also picked up by N8SUZ's packet setup at the finish line. The packets were transmitted every two minutes over the regular net frequency. Several times the packets came during voice transmissions and were still able to be logged and with not too much interference to the net. The packets were logged using the WinAPRS software which can be downloaded from the GOBAhams site at the link below or from the WinAPRS website. There is no electronically available map of the Athens Bike Path over which most of marathon was run so we created our own map. The map and the inbound and outbound log files can be downloaded from the links below. To read them you will need the WinAPRS or similar compatible APRS software and the marathon map also linked below.

We are looking to utilize APRS for our squads and some of our bike mobiles if we can get some suitable recording stations through our local clubs and/or GOBA staff. The way this test was used, it doesn't require a separate radio and TNC setup in order to send the packets. For the squads, we may not need to have packets sent so frequently since they are stationary much of the time. Let me know what you think of using this technology for GOBA.

Downloads: (log files may need to be opened in and saved from Notepad to be in text format)

WinAPRS 2.84 (Winzip) (9 mb)

Athens Marathon Map (download to maps directory of WinAPRS install) (2 kb)

Athens Marathon Outbound Log (download to logs directory of WinAPRS install in text format) (1 kb)

Athens Marathon Inbound Log (download to logs directory of WinAPRS install in text format) (1 kb)

Ohio APRS Maps (Winzip) (download to maps directory of WinAPRS install) (842 kb)