After talking to several amateur radio operators during my week at Burning Man I overheard two people who were going to have a meeting near the “tripod statue” … the “War of the Worlds” statue. So I grabbed my radio, jumped on my bike, and headed out in that direction. It was pretty easy to spot someone talking into his HT, so I headed in that direction.

First there was one, then the two of us, then three… then out of the woodwork, four, five, six then seven! Even though we talked on the noon net every day, we’d never actually organized an official meeting, and just by hearing each other talking, we ended up with seven in just a few minutes.

Thanks to all, and I look forward to the Playa again in 2007!

Easiest ways to find me are the following:

• DB0ANF APRS Server:
  Ugly, but has tons of information, and the best track log I’ve found.
  http://www.db0anf.de/hamweb/aprsdb/showdata/KI6ESH-3/shmovements

• GAPRS:
  Just search for KI6ESH, it’ll map all related SSID’s. A good job of mapping and searching.
  http://www.gaprs.net/

• FindU:
  The most popular APRS Mapping Site
  http://www.findu.com/cgi-bin/find.cgi?ki6esh-3

• Google APRS:
  Shows all APRS data for an area, no search offered, but awesome!
  http://googleaprs.com/

Playing with the radio continues! Last week Ellen (KI6FEB) and Mark (KI6FEA) both passed their technician exams, I hoped they might take the test but I really never believed hey would! Following their successful completion of the exam we went to a class for new hams about emergency communications put together by the Southern Peninsula Emergency Communication System. Both of them found it very helpful, as did I! Continue reading →

A typical first blog comment… “I doubt I’ll post much… but I might as well get one started…”

Last night was fun, got my radio in the mail in the morning, got the GPS, played with it at lunch while eating with Ellen, then last night finally got the two to talk to each other and broadcast my position via APRS… sure, I only got one packet to connect, but at least I could see myself on the map! For now, this is one address to quickly see what I’ve been up to:

http://www.findu.com/cgi-bin/find.cgi?ki6esh-3