I sometimes run and ARPS system whem I am out in the mobile. The map above shows my postions as reported to my home station on a trip from home over to the local club meeting and back home again.
The APRS uses a GPS and the ARPS network to track a suitable equiped mobile station. The data is also fed into the Internet in a wonderful marriage of Ham Radio and the Internet. If you are within a reasonable distance from the mobile station you can copy his signal directly. The actual range that this works at is dependent on the configuration of the local ARPS system and the path the mobile has in the mobile ARPS system. However if the mobile is sufficiently close to an Internet gateway his data will be fed into the ARPS Interment system and can retrieved at findu.com.
Below are links to some of the usefull maps available at findu.com for me when I am running the ARPS system. If you know someone else running an APRS system and the call they are using you can change the URL in the web addesses provided and locate them as well. I use the call WD3P-7 when mobile and WD3P-1 for the home station. It is customary to use the "-#" suffix as one can have multiple ARPS systems running simultaniously. I frequently have both the home and mobile systems running at the same time.
The findu.com web site provies links that provide both location data and maps of that location. Many times there are multiple maps on differing scales. It also will provide tracking data. While I have not provided a link it will also return the raw data that it has received. Below are some of those links. You will find addtional links at findu.com.
Recognize that the most recent mobile QTH can be several days old if I have not had the ARPS system active. findu.com only retains the data for a limited amount of time. So if it has been a while since I have been mobile it may not find my call sign.
The map at the top of this page was produced with the TOPO! map progam. I used the Mid-Atlantic USA version of the program to create the map. This program is produced by the National Geographic Society. They have a very nice Extended User License that grants legal permission to use copyrighted reproductions from TOPO! In return, they only ask that the corresponding TOPO! overlay files be posted on the National Geographic MapXchange website. In my mind this is a win-win situation. I get to put some nice maps up at the web site. Topo/National Geographic get of bit of publicity. When I upload the map to the MapXchange I get to advertise the web site by listing the URL on the map. They get to show others how someone is using their program.
How the Map was Created.
The home ARPS system uses
ARPS+SA.
With a copy of Street Atlas USA running and with
ARPS+SA set to display the history of a particular station it is possible to transfer those
position locations to Street Atlas as draw objects. These were then exported to a text file.
The resulting text file was imported into TOPO! as a set of waypoints. Those waypoints are
displayed on the map in numberical sequence with the first point labled WD3P-7, the second as 001
and so on. The ARPS system was set to beacon every three minutes. However two of the
positon reports did not make it to the home system. (Note: I do not provide a link to Delorme's
Street Atlas since they have a very restictive license system which does not allow me to post
maps based on their products.)
E-Mail: WD3P