VE6AB Mobile Ops
At The World's End -Robust Packet
I'm going to get to HF RPR APRS in a moment but first I suspect that most of you haven't visited this part of eastern Alberta, and that includes many of the people living within the province of Alberta.
Living in Alberta, most residents prefer to visit the Alberta Rockies, and that's fine, but believe me when I say you have been missing out on a part of Alberta that is in my opinion is a hidden treasure not to be missed, even though I like to describe this part of Alberta as where the Earth ends, or at least you can see it from there.
I have enjoyed visiting Dinosaur Provincial Park and the surrounding grasslands for 35 or more years, and it may be my favorite place to visit.
Because of the abundance and diversity of dinosaur remains, the rich environments for plants and animals, and the spectacular badlands , DPP was declared a World Heritage Site in 1979.
The landscape that makes up DPP is like stepping back to another time. The inky black skies at night are stunning with the star-frost of a billion years like a stream flowing overhead.
Just so you know when visiting the eastern areas of Alberta, if your running a VHF/UHF rig in your mobile, and are set up for VHF APRS, there is little or no coverage in the areas surrounding DPP and further east. If your spending time down in the bottom of the Badlands that border the Red Deer river, then its for certain that there is no coverage of any kind.
Once again the answer is HF RPR APRS and while out in the middle of nowhere, it was comforting to know that I was being gated by a string of Canadian and US RPR stations located coast to coast that included VE3XZT-15, VE6EN-10, N0KQX-9, AG6IF-4, N3FCX-3, AND W3LUZ-7 whom all heard and gated me multiple times over several days while out and about in the vicinity of DPP and the grasslands that surround it..
During the 200 kilometer drive from Calgary, I was pleased to see the DCD (Data Carrier Detect) LED light coming on regularly as the tracker decoded stations and placed them in the station list of my Garmin Montana as well as on the map shown on the screen of the Montana.
Once I arrived at DPP and dropped down into the valley arriving at the visitors center that includes the field station and the campground that borders the Red Deer river, I was still being heard as the SCS Tracker sent out position beacons via my Kenwood TS-480HX, and this was while being located 100 meters (325 feet) beneath the rim of the surrounding grasslands.
Later on in the night while in an area north of the park located near the ghostown of Steveville, I was pleased to capture two RPR European stations new to me, the first DK2EZI-10 located in Germany and the second IR0UGN-2 located in Italy.
I responded by sending messages to both stations, and received an ack from DK2EZ-10 probably to be expected as the time in Germany was 3am local, and the human would be in bed leaving robust packet and artificial intelligence to respond to any contacts.
Still I was pleased to be heard and acknowledged as the distance between us was 7500 kilometers on a northeast path from my mobile.
I also made contact with Andrew's RPR station VE6EN-10 back in Calgary with messages passed back and forth between Andrew and myself via the keyboard of my netbook running APRSIS and connected to my SCS Tracker via KISS mode.
The distance between Andrew's RPR station and my mobile was 200 kilometers.
All in all it was a good trip with pleasing photos captured and ham radio played.
Oh, in case you were wondering about the multiple paths shown on the map in the vicinity of the park, it was all the back and forth driving I did between the various locations that I shot photos from through the course of the night.
You can run but you cannot hide, when you have HF RPR APRS as your traveling companion going down the road.
Click on the photo for a closer look at the map.....
About the Aurora present on the northern horizon on this night that can normally create poor band conditions on HF.....
http://www.jerryclement.ca/HamRadio/HamRadio/i-cFD9h8j
