Isn't it interesting to note the immense time in the news media spent on Michael Jackson when it was barely noted that Walter Cronkite KB2GSD had died.

    The article by Ted Hartson WA8ULG in the inquirer  on July 12 was very interesting. Ted, as many know was a member of SMARS when the name SMARS was adopted for our club. He is noted as one of top experts in the cable television field and is a very successful inventor.

    This is the IYA ( International Year of Astronomy. ) It's been 400 years since Galileo first used a telescope to validate the Copernican concept of a heliocentric local universe as opposed to the church supported geocentric universe.  His support of Copernicus and the resultant attacks by the Rush Limbaugh's of his time caused much grief on his part.

    Today, we have more ham satellites in the sky than ever before.  In addition to the FunCube and BlueSat, four others, Castor, Pullux, Bevo-1 and AggieSat2 have taken their place in orbit. All are aimed at the amateur community interests. Some like ARISS attempt to get the young involved in ham radio, others are to improve communications. Amateurs are more than carrying a hand held in search of "the great event."

    Most of us lack talent and skills to take on the construction and launching of a satellite, so we reduce our goals to something that appears to be more attainable. Building various items that belong in a ham shack often seems more difficult than we want to get involved with, so we look for an item that is obviously easy to understand and make --- the antenna! How can anything so obviously simple be hard to do? The antenna is the easiest part of ham radio to modify and the information available is almost limitless, ---- the misinformation is also limitless.

Here's a puzzle -- 1,2,6,42,1806,3263442, how do you find the next number?

As mentioned in a previous edition of Feedback, APRS is Automatic Packet Reporting System..  It's function is to pass packets of data through the amateur digipeater system until an Igate forwards that packet to an APRS server on the internet.  What happens then seems to be a bit of magic.

One internet site, www.aprs.fi uses data from that packet to plot its position on a map.  Continuing reports from that same station result in a track of that station, which could be an automobile, an airplane, a boat or an experimental high altitude balloon.  Many amateurs have set up weather stations that supply data to the APRS system.

The APRS system supports text messages.  With proper equipment, one can send and receive short text messages.
Take a little time on your computer.  Log onto www.aprs.fi and play around.  You will probably get a map centered on Grand Rapids and it will have a number of call signs displayed with a variety of icons associated with them.  Click on an icon and see what you learn.  You can click on the map and drag it around.  When you get Battle Creek centered, you will likely see some familiar call signs.

Experiment with stuff in the upper right corner.  You won't break anything, but you will learn how to use aprs.fi. The Show Last box has 1 Hour as default.  Click the down arrow and you have a choice of time. Looking for someone?  Enter his callsign (with SSID) and click Search.  If he is transmitting beacons, you will find him, no matter where in the world.  You can choose the map view or a satellite view. Drag the map around, zoom in/out and find your house.  See those little dots along the track of a station?  Each dot is a beacon transmitted by that station.  When you use your mouse to point at that dot, you see his call sign.  Click on it and see what you learn.

You can expect a program on APRS at an upcoming club meeting.

Don W8RVT