FYI, sadly: The Sailnet Beneteau and Catalina Lists have been abuzz
with perplexed postings from and consoling advice to the owner of a
brand new Beneteau 57, the only one so far delivered in the U.S., just
purchased last week, and which, during commissioning, vanished from
the dealer's dock [sic!].

It is said that the Coast Guard, the insurer, and other police
agenies, and marinas have been alerted and are of course looking but
so far to no avail.

For more besides the cited List postings, see
www.yachtsalvage.com/Listings/57Beneteau03.html

Sorta wants to make ya hook those blasting caps to the starter
solenoid, doesn't it?

Of course, we COULD hide an APRS-GPS 50 watt 2 meter ham rig aboard in
an inconspicuous place leaving it running 24/7 with its burst
transmissions on the national APRS frequency linked to the
internet.....

Then, it would be a matter of accessing:
http://www.wulfden.org/APRSQuery.shtml

and entering the ham callsign into the query page to see if any of the
thousands of APRS-equipped hams and their nodes had heard its lat/long
beacon. Try entering out station out at the Charleston Weather Bureau
Office into the callsign box:
Enter WX4CHS
It'll bring up a map that will place the transmitter within 3 meters
of its exact location on many maps, right online. Any ham's APRS
transmitter is THAT easy to find, right on the net. A moving mobile
even tells you his course and speed...(c;

Click on "Click here to find nearby stations" for the last 240 hours
during daylight hours to see if any of the mobiles are moving around.
They'll track on the map displays in near-realtime if they are.....

I'd be easy to find this Beneteau if it had a couple hundred dollars
in ham equipment socked away under a drawer......any place in the
country.....or maybe the world.



On Sat, 10 Jan 2004 20:56:52 GMT, wrote:


FYI, sadly: The Sailnet Beneteau and Catalina Lists have been abuzz
with perplexed postings from and consoling advice to the owner of a
brand new Beneteau 57, the only one so far delivered in the U.S., just
purchased last week, and which, during commissioning, vanished from
the dealer's dock [sic!].

It is said that the Coast Guard, the insurer, and other police
agenies, and marinas have been alerted and are of course looking but
so far to no avail.

For more besides the cited List postings, see
www.yachtsalvage.com/Listings/57Beneteau03.html

Sorta wants to make ya hook those blasting caps to the starter
solenoid, doesn't it?

Of course, we COULD hide an APRS-GPS 50 watt 2 meter ham rig aboard in
an inconspicuous place leaving it running 24/7 with its burst
transmissions on the national APRS frequency linked to the
internet.....

Then, it would be a matter of accessing:
http://www.wulfden.org/APRSQuery.shtml

and entering the ham callsign into the query page to see if any of the
thousands of APRS-equipped hams and their nodes had heard its lat/long
beacon. Try entering out station out at the Charleston Weather Bureau
Office into the callsign box:
Enter WX4CHS
It'll bring up a map that will place the transmitter within 3 meters
of its exact location on many maps, right online. Any ham's APRS
transmitter is THAT easy to find, right on the net. A moving mobile
even tells you his course and speed...(c;

Click on "Click here to find nearby stations" for the last 240 hours
during daylight hours to see if any of the mobiles are moving around.
They'll track on the map displays in near-realtime if they are.....

I'd be easy to find this Beneteau if it had a couple hundred dollars
in ham equipment socked away under a drawer......any place in the
country.....or maybe the world.



On Sat, 10 Jan 2004 20:56:52 GMT, wrote:


FYI, sadly: The Sailnet Beneteau and Catalina Lists have been abuzz
with perplexed postings from and consoling advice to the owner of a
brand new Beneteau 57, the only one so far delivered in the U.S., just
purchased last week, and which, during commissioning, vanished from
the dealer's dock [sic!].

It is said that the Coast Guard, the insurer, and other police
agenies, and marinas have been alerted and are of course looking but
so far to no avail.

For more besides the cited List postings, see
www.yachtsalvage.com/Listings/57Beneteau03.html

How about an EPIRB with a remote?

Larry W4CSC wrote:

Sorta wants to make ya hook those blasting caps to the starter
solenoid, doesn't it?

Of course, we COULD hide an APRS-GPS 50 watt 2 meter ham rig aboard in
an inconspicuous place leaving it running 24/7 with its burst
transmissions on the national APRS frequency linked to the
internet.....

Then, it would be a matter of accessing:
http://www.wulfden.org/APRSQuery.shtml

and entering the ham callsign into the query page to see if any of the
thousands of APRS-equipped hams and their nodes had heard its lat/long
beacon. Try entering out station out at the Charleston Weather Bureau
Office into the callsign box:
Enter WX4CHS
It'll bring up a map that will place the transmitter within 3 meters
of its exact location on many maps, right online. Any ham's APRS
transmitter is THAT easy to find, right on the net. A moving mobile
even tells you his course and speed...(c;

Click on "Click here to find nearby stations" for the last 240 hours
during daylight hours to see if any of the mobiles are moving around.
They'll track on the map displays in near-realtime if they are.....

I'd be easy to find this Beneteau if it had a couple hundred dollars
in ham equipment socked away under a drawer......any place in the
country.....or maybe the world.



On Sat, 10 Jan 2004 20:56:52 GMT, wrote:


FYI, sadly: The Sailnet Beneteau and Catalina Lists have been abuzz
with perplexed postings from and consoling advice to the owner of a
brand new Beneteau 57, the only one so far delivered in the U.S., just
purchased last week, and which, during commissioning, vanished from
the dealer's dock [sic!].

It is said that the Coast Guard, the insurer, and other police
agenies, and marinas have been alerted and are of course looking but
so far to no avail.

For more besides the cited List postings, see
www.yachtsalvage.com/Listings/57Beneteau03.html

How about an EPIRB with a remote?

Larry W4CSC wrote:

Sorta wants to make ya hook those blasting caps to the starter
solenoid, doesn't it?

Of course, we COULD hide an APRS-GPS 50 watt 2 meter ham rig aboard in
an inconspicuous place leaving it running 24/7 with its burst
transmissions on the national APRS frequency linked to the
internet.....

Then, it would be a matter of accessing:
http://www.wulfden.org/APRSQuery.shtml

and entering the ham callsign into the query page to see if any of the
thousands of APRS-equipped hams and their nodes had heard its lat/long
beacon. Try entering out station out at the Charleston Weather Bureau
Office into the callsign box:
Enter WX4CHS
It'll bring up a map that will place the transmitter within 3 meters
of its exact location on many maps, right online. Any ham's APRS
transmitter is THAT easy to find, right on the net. A moving mobile
even tells you his course and speed...(c;

Click on "Click here to find nearby stations" for the last 240 hours
during daylight hours to see if any of the mobiles are moving around.
They'll track on the map displays in near-realtime if they are.....

I'd be easy to find this Beneteau if it had a couple hundred dollars
in ham equipment socked away under a drawer......any place in the
country.....or maybe the world.



On Sat, 10 Jan 2004 20:56:52 GMT, wrote:


FYI, sadly: The Sailnet Beneteau and Catalina Lists have been abuzz
with perplexed postings from and consoling advice to the owner of a
brand new Beneteau 57, the only one so far delivered in the U.S., just
purchased last week, and which, during commissioning, vanished from
the dealer's dock [sic!].

It is said that the Coast Guard, the insurer, and other police
agenies, and marinas have been alerted and are of course looking but
so far to no avail.

For more besides the cited List postings, see
www.yachtsalvage.com/Listings/57Beneteau03.html

Couple of quickie questions regarding the post left below for context:

First is, especially in light of your stories about the captain whose radio
was locked out in order to maintain legality of license, what are the
niceties of licensing of such a rig?

Second is related to the usual discussion of installation and costs. It
seems that such an installation would be neither easy nor cheap. Of course,
in relation to a million dollar boat, a few grand is a rounding error.
However, for the rest of us, an incremental installation of a ham rig is
scarcely insignificant.

Did I misunderstand your post, or is there, perhaps, something like an EPIRB
which doesn't involve all that licensing and cost, but which can be active
all the time as you suggest?

Regardless of the cost, this concept appeals for allaying the fears of our
various relatives. If it's still sending, it's still above water! :{))

So, as a non-ham (yet) and therefore ignorant, is the APRS-GPS cited a
product name or a ham specification? If the former, how does one acquire
such a beauty?? If the latter, I presume one must first be a ham, and
second, be aboard, to legally use this device? And, if so, how does this
compute in terms of a theft, when the licensee is obviously not aboard?

L8R

Skip and Lydia

--
"And then again, when you sit at the helm of your little ship on a clear
night, and gaze at the countless stars overhead, and realize that you are
quite alone on a great, wide sea, it is apt to occur to you that in the
general scheme of things you are merely an insignificant speck on the
surface of the ocean; and are not nearly so important or as self-sufficient
as you thought you were. Which is an exceedingly wholesome thought, and one
that may effect a permanent change in your deportment that will be greatly
appreciated by your friends."- James S. Pitkin
"Larry W4CSC" wrote in message
...
Sorta wants to make ya hook those blasting caps to the starter
solenoid, doesn't it?

Of course, we COULD hide an APRS-GPS 50 watt 2 meter ham rig aboard in
an inconspicuous place leaving it running 24/7 with its burst
transmissions on the national APRS frequency linked to the
internet.....

Then, it would be a matter of accessing:
http://www.wulfden.org/APRSQuery.shtml

and entering the ham callsign into the query page to see if any of the
thousands of APRS-equipped hams and their nodes had heard its lat/long
beacon. Try entering out station out at the Charleston Weather Bureau
Office into the callsign box:
Enter WX4CHS
It'll bring up a map that will place the transmitter within 3 meters
of its exact location on many maps, right online. Any ham's APRS
transmitter is THAT easy to find, right on the net. A moving mobile
even tells you his course and speed...(c;

Click on "Click here to find nearby stations" for the last 240 hours
during daylight hours to see if any of the mobiles are moving around.
They'll track on the map displays in near-realtime if they are.....

I'd be easy to find this Beneteau if it had a couple hundred dollars
in ham equipment socked away under a drawer......any place in the
country.....or maybe the world.



On Sat, 10 Jan 2004 20:56:52 GMT, wrote:


FYI, sadly: The Sailnet Beneteau and Catalina Lists have been abuzz
with perplexed postings from and consoling advice to the owner of a
brand new Beneteau 57, the only one so far delivered in the U.S., just
purchased last week, and which, during commissioning, vanished from
the dealer's dock [sic!].

It is said that the Coast Guard, the insurer, and other police
agenies, and marinas have been alerted and are of course looking but
so far to no avail.

For more besides the cited List postings, see
www.yachtsalvage.com/Listings/57Beneteau03.html

Couple of quickie questions regarding the post left below for context:

First is, especially in light of your stories about the captain whose radio
was locked out in order to maintain legality of license, what are the
niceties of licensing of such a rig?

Second is related to the usual discussion of installation and costs. It
seems that such an installation would be neither easy nor cheap. Of course,
in relation to a million dollar boat, a few grand is a rounding error.
However, for the rest of us, an incremental installation of a ham rig is
scarcely insignificant.

Did I misunderstand your post, or is there, perhaps, something like an EPIRB
which doesn't involve all that licensing and cost, but which can be active
all the time as you suggest?

Regardless of the cost, this concept appeals for allaying the fears of our
various relatives. If it's still sending, it's still above water! :{))

So, as a non-ham (yet) and therefore ignorant, is the APRS-GPS cited a
product name or a ham specification? If the former, how does one acquire
such a beauty?? If the latter, I presume one must first be a ham, and
second, be aboard, to legally use this device? And, if so, how does this
compute in terms of a theft, when the licensee is obviously not aboard?

L8R

Skip and Lydia

--
"And then again, when you sit at the helm of your little ship on a clear
night, and gaze at the countless stars overhead, and realize that you are
quite alone on a great, wide sea, it is apt to occur to you that in the
general scheme of things you are merely an insignificant speck on the
surface of the ocean; and are not nearly so important or as self-sufficient
as you thought you were. Which is an exceedingly wholesome thought, and one
that may effect a permanent change in your deportment that will be greatly
appreciated by your friends."- James S. Pitkin
"Larry W4CSC" wrote in message
...
Sorta wants to make ya hook those blasting caps to the starter
solenoid, doesn't it?

Of course, we COULD hide an APRS-GPS 50 watt 2 meter ham rig aboard in
an inconspicuous place leaving it running 24/7 with its burst
transmissions on the national APRS frequency linked to the
internet.....

Then, it would be a matter of accessing:
http://www.wulfden.org/APRSQuery.shtml

and entering the ham callsign into the query page to see if any of the
thousands of APRS-equipped hams and their nodes had heard its lat/long
beacon. Try entering out station out at the Charleston Weather Bureau
Office into the callsign box:
Enter WX4CHS
It'll bring up a map that will place the transmitter within 3 meters
of its exact location on many maps, right online. Any ham's APRS
transmitter is THAT easy to find, right on the net. A moving mobile
even tells you his course and speed...(c;

Click on "Click here to find nearby stations" for the last 240 hours
during daylight hours to see if any of the mobiles are moving around.
They'll track on the map displays in near-realtime if they are.....

I'd be easy to find this Beneteau if it had a couple hundred dollars
in ham equipment socked away under a drawer......any place in the
country.....or maybe the world.



On Sat, 10 Jan 2004 20:56:52 GMT, wrote:


FYI, sadly: The Sailnet Beneteau and Catalina Lists have been abuzz
with perplexed postings from and consoling advice to the owner of a
brand new Beneteau 57, the only one so far delivered in the U.S., just
purchased last week, and which, during commissioning, vanished from
the dealer's dock [sic!].

It is said that the Coast Guard, the insurer, and other police
agenies, and marinas have been alerted and are of course looking but
so far to no avail.

For more besides the cited List postings, see
www.yachtsalvage.com/Listings/57Beneteau03.html

On Sun, 11 Jan 2004 17:37:01 GMT, "Skip Gundlach"
wrote:

Couple of quickie questions regarding the post left below for context:

First is, especially in light of your stories about the captain whose radio
was locked out in order to maintain legality of license, what are the
niceties of licensing of such a rig?

The APRS rig can run on its own if a licensed amateur with the lowest
class Technician license (no code, simple test to memorize) is in
control of it. Most stations on findu.com run 24/7 while their hams
are away. It's gotta have someone's ham call on it to operate on the
ham bands. Too bad one of the unused "public correspondence"
frequencies the telephone companies has abandoned can't be converted
for this kind of use, but that would be a bureaucratic nightmare...you
know...like GMDSS/DSC is.

Second is related to the usual discussion of installation and costs. It
seems that such an installation would be neither easy nor cheap. Of course,
in relation to a million dollar boat, a few grand is a rounding error.
However, for the rest of us, an incremental installation of a ham rig is
scarcely insignificant.

How about under $300 with the internal TNC unit that handles the
packet radio data transmitter? The radio without TNC (terminal node
controller) is only $155 but won't do APRS. With the TNC, you simply
plug your NMEA GPS data into the connector on the radio and the node
controller handles the rest.

http://www.alfenterprises.com/amateu...eur_radios.htm
as an example only. I know nothing of this dealer, just found his
webpage to show you costs.

I used a $150 Alinco 2 meter 50W transceiver for a packet radio
repeater at the base of a 330' tower for 10 years. It even survived a
direct lightning strike that just blew the hell out of the Motorola
paging transmitters on the tower, but I can't imagine why. The whole
place went up! Great radios cheap. Icom, Yaesu and Kenwood also make
radios with direct GPS input for APRS. The antenna installation is
just like your VHF marine radio. Marine is on 156-157 Mhz. Hams have
a huge band from 144 to 148 Mhz we call 2 meters. Millions of hams on
FM use it. I won't travel without 2 meters.

Did I misunderstand your post, or is there, perhaps, something like an EPIRB
which doesn't involve all that licensing and cost, but which can be active
all the time as you suggest?

APRS was invented by Bob Bruninga, WB4APR, who happens to work at the
Naval Academy. Midshipmen kept getting lost and the Academy needed a
way to find out where their many boats were in realtime. So, Bob used
packet ham radio equipment common for the day and adapted a notebook
computer to gather GPS lat/long/course/speed data and send it via
packet radio back to the Academy where the data was displayed on
simple charts he drew himself with a drafting program. APRS was
shared with the local ham community which, like the Linux community on
computers, thought it was neat and it EXPLODED from there. Ham radio
manufacturers, always looking for ways to make an extra buck, started
incorporating Bob's ideas into their equipment. There's even tiny
walkie talkies with GPS receivers and APRS-enabled modems built in a
shirt-pocket-sized walkie talkie. Addicts carry them around hamfests
(ham radio conventions) so you can see where your buddy is located, or
where the amateur balloon or rocket is going. More features were
added, like the ability to send individual message and broadcast
alerts, interfaces between home weather stations and APRS systems to
disseminate realtime weather data, OnStar like emergency reporting for
emergency team communications, Cross-band repeater nodes where a VHF
or UHF APRS system is connected to the rest of the world by connecting
VHF-UHF radios to HF radios. Listen to USB on 10.151Mhz and you'll
hear packet radio burst transmissions of APRS HF stations. Get your
General class ham radio license or Extra and you can operate APRS
worldwide on HF. This gives us long and short range APRS
capabilities. If your boat had an HF APRS station on it, and you
simply left APRS running, it would send out your position beacons
automatically and the family back home could watch your progress to
your favorite island on findu.com which has many HF radio ports across
the planet to the internet network.......for the price of your
existing ham radio capable HF SSB radio and a $125 TNC hooked to your
existing GPS receiver.

Regardless of the cost, this concept appeals for allaying the fears of our
various relatives. If it's still sending, it's still above water! :{))

Excellent observation! Bob's APRS homepage at the Academy has TONS of
information on his system, with pointers and realtime data from not
only the ham radio side of APRS, but the Navy side, too.
http://web.usna.navy.mil/~bruninga/aprs.html

As you look down this site, you'll even see the International Space
Station has APRS running on it. Bob has all his live APRS stations,
VHF, UHF, marine and HF online. You can actually see APRS running
right from the webpage via the webpages. You must have Javascript and
Java enabled to see it live.

I've clicked up the 10.151 Mhz HF link java and I see WB2ZRV-14 is a
motorhome (from the icom he selected to transmit) and is near
Frederick, MD at 38 58.02N by 72 26.31W on course 227 degrees at only
8 knots for some silly reason. (If you click on any station's icon,
the bottom line of the browser will display the data I got this from
in the browser status line. His motorhome must have HF radio
capabilities, of course. The VHF ports have THOUSANDS of contacts,
especially when they're going to work or back home at night during
rush hour. If this station were on your boat, we'd know exactly where
you are located, your course and speed, in realtime, from any internet
point on the planet. You can easily see the advantages of this for
those relatives.

APRS has many other functions as it matures. Copy this line into your
browser:
http://www.findu.com/cgi-bin/wxnear.cgi?zip=29418
You are now looking at a tabular listing of all the APRS Weather
stations around Charleston, SC. (Just replace our 29418 zip code with
yours to see them in your area. Bookmark it and your local hams will
give you realtime local weather WITHOUT all the spam...(c Want to
see what the weather is like where those relatives live? Just
substitute their zipcode. On our 29418 list, you'll see a bunch of
non-ham weather stations starting with CW and a number. Those are the
weather stations of our very active NWS office. The NWS has its own
"club call" WX4CHS. The CW stations are not on ham radio, but WX4CHS
transmits them to the rest of us, automatically, 24/7. The local
internet-to-ham radio interface node picks them up off the air.
WA4USN-3 is located on board the US Naval Museum aircraft carrier USS
Yorktown (CV-10) in Charleston Harbor at Patriots Point Naval Museum.
I see their rain guage needs to be reset or fixed...(c;

So, as a non-ham (yet) and therefore ignorant, is the APRS-GPS cited a
product name or a ham specification?

APRS belongs to Bob Bruninga, its inventor. But, Bob allows everyone
to use it. The ham radio manufacturers have taken this, like IBM has
taken to Linux, and incorporated it into their rigs for sale.

If the former, how does one acquire
such a beauty?? If the latter, I presume one must first be a ham, and
second, be aboard, to legally use this device? And, if so, how does this
compute in terms of a theft, when the licensee is obviously not aboard?

Yes, you'll need your technician-class ham license to get on VHF.
You'll soon appreciate being able to get on the thousands of local
2-meter and 440 Mhz UHF powerful repeaters hams run across the planet.
WCSC-TV and a group of local hams sponsor a VHF repeater on 147.300
Mhz (upshift) which listens for your voice calls on 147.900 Mhz. The
repeater is on a platform at 1,800 ft over the ICW and provides solid
communications for about 80 miles inland and 100 miles to seaward for
the ham community. All are welcome to use it that have ham licenses,
like most repeaters sponsored by clubs and individuals across the
planet. Our VHF radios aren't limited to this independent boater
line-of-sight nonsense like marine VHF. Other repeaters in our area
are all linked up with UHF radio links so you can stand in Charleston
with your 1/2 watt 2 meter walkie talkie and talk to your buddy on his
1/2 watt walkie talkie on the street in downtown Columbia via the
repeater system, 110 miles away.....all with a radio that fits in your
shirt pocket....and as with all ham radio, at no charge whatsoever.
We do it for the fun of it...(c;

You need to contact your local ham radio operators to see when their
club is giving the next radio class and when their local volunteer
examiners are giving the FCC tests so you can get your OWN ham radio
license. I wouldn't go to sea without it! Millions of hams are
willing, ready and able to help you run phone patches, relay messages,
send emails for you and make schedules...across the planet. That
hasn't changed since radio was invented..... The technician test is
REAL EASY NOW with no Morse Code nonsense to learn! Add the simple
5wpm Morse test and you're on HF ham bands! Befriend your local hams
in your local ham club. Some of them have phone patches on HF! TAKE
'EM OUT SAILING! We don't bite! Some of us are a little strange,
being nerds like me...(c; Going to sea? Your new ham friend will
make a schedule with you on some great ham frequency at a specific
time. You call him from your boat, he calls Mom on his phone and
flips a switch. VOILA! FREE PHONE CALLS! All you had to be is nice.
He cannot charge you a dime and does it for the fun of it. If Mom
lives in his town, it isn't long distance. If she is, he calls her
collect and lets her pay the ld charges from his house to hers for the
calls. The ONLY thing you can't do on ham radio is BUSINESS....NO
BUSINESS. Ham radio is forbidden from conducting business because of
telephone company pressure on the regulators. The test is simple.
"Does either party have a money interest in this call?" If yes, it's
forbidden. If it's questionable, consider it forbidden. Hams have
gotten this silly rule slackened of late. You CAN call ahead on ham
radio to make hotel reservations, call a towtruck, etc., to benefit
the ham on the road.....

Get your ham license, Skip! It's still quite a fraternity. You'll
meet some awful nice people. You come into a strange port, look up
the local repeater in your repeater directory and call CQ (anyone).
Someone will answer and help you find that great little restaurant
they know about. Invite them down to the boat for a drink and ask 'em
where you can get that oddball impeller for the cooling pump. Locals
know where everything is. A German yachtsman came into Charleston in
a beautiful 50-something foot cruiser. He called on the repeater,
here, and made a bunch of local friends. That gave us an excuse to
have a little ham party and we loaded his boat with provisions, fixed
his electronics, got him some new radios and made friends for life.
I've even talked to him from his home station in Austria. I also
talked to him in Tahiti last year on his last circumnavigation.....

On Sun, 11 Jan 2004 17:37:01 GMT, "Skip Gundlach"
wrote:

Couple of quickie questions regarding the post left below for context:

First is, especially in light of your stories about the captain whose radio
was locked out in order to maintain legality of license, what are the
niceties of licensing of such a rig?

The APRS rig can run on its own if a licensed amateur with the lowest
class Technician license (no code, simple test to memorize) is in
control of it. Most stations on findu.com run 24/7 while their hams
are away. It's gotta have someone's ham call on it to operate on the
ham bands. Too bad one of the unused "public correspondence"
frequencies the telephone companies has abandoned can't be converted
for this kind of use, but that would be a bureaucratic nightmare...you
know...like GMDSS/DSC is.

Second is related to the usual discussion of installation and costs. It
seems that such an installation would be neither easy nor cheap. Of course,
in relation to a million dollar boat, a few grand is a rounding error.
However, for the rest of us, an incremental installation of a ham rig is
scarcely insignificant.

How about under $300 with the internal TNC unit that handles the
packet radio data transmitter? The radio without TNC (terminal node
controller) is only $155 but won't do APRS. With the TNC, you simply
plug your NMEA GPS data into the connector on the radio and the node
controller handles the rest.

http://www.alfenterprises.com/amateu...eur_radios.htm
as an example only. I know nothing of this dealer, just found his
webpage to show you costs.

I used a $150 Alinco 2 meter 50W transceiver for a packet radio
repeater at the base of a 330' tower for 10 years. It even survived a
direct lightning strike that just blew the hell out of the Motorola
paging transmitters on the tower, but I can't imagine why. The whole
place went up! Great radios cheap. Icom, Yaesu and Kenwood also make
radios with direct GPS input for APRS. The antenna installation is
just like your VHF marine radio. Marine is on 156-157 Mhz. Hams have
a huge band from 144 to 148 Mhz we call 2 meters. Millions of hams on
FM use it. I won't travel without 2 meters.

Did I misunderstand your post, or is there, perhaps, something like an EPIRB
which doesn't involve all that licensing and cost, but which can be active
all the time as you suggest?

APRS was invented by Bob Bruninga, WB4APR, who happens to work at the
Naval Academy. Midshipmen kept getting lost and the Academy needed a
way to find out where their many boats were in realtime. So, Bob used
packet ham radio equipment common for the day and adapted a notebook
computer to gather GPS lat/long/course/speed data and send it via
packet radio back to the Academy where the data was displayed on
simple charts he drew himself with a drafting program. APRS was
shared with the local ham community which, like the Linux community on
computers, thought it was neat and it EXPLODED from there. Ham radio
manufacturers, always looking for ways to make an extra buck, started
incorporating Bob's ideas into their equipment. There's even tiny
walkie talkies with GPS receivers and APRS-enabled modems built in a
shirt-pocket-sized walkie talkie. Addicts carry them around hamfests
(ham radio conventions) so you can see where your buddy is located, or
where the amateur balloon or rocket is going. More features were
added, like the ability to send individual message and broadcast
alerts, interfaces between home weather stations and APRS systems to
disseminate realtime weather data, OnStar like emergency reporting for
emergency team communications, Cross-band repeater nodes where a VHF
or UHF APRS system is connected to the rest of the world by connecting
VHF-UHF radios to HF radios. Listen to USB on 10.151Mhz and you'll
hear packet radio burst transmissions of APRS HF stations. Get your
General class ham radio license or Extra and you can operate APRS
worldwide on HF. This gives us long and short range APRS
capabilities. If your boat had an HF APRS station on it, and you
simply left APRS running, it would send out your position beacons
automatically and the family back home could watch your progress to
your favorite island on findu.com which has many HF radio ports across
the planet to the internet network.......for the price of your
existing ham radio capable HF SSB radio and a $125 TNC hooked to your
existing GPS receiver.

Regardless of the cost, this concept appeals for allaying the fears of our
various relatives. If it's still sending, it's still above water! :{))

Excellent observation! Bob's APRS homepage at the Academy has TONS of
information on his system, with pointers and realtime data from not
only the ham radio side of APRS, but the Navy side, too.
http://web.usna.navy.mil/~bruninga/aprs.html

As you look down this site, you'll even see the International Space
Station has APRS running on it. Bob has all his live APRS stations,
VHF, UHF, marine and HF online. You can actually see APRS running
right from the webpage via the webpages. You must have Javascript and
Java enabled to see it live.

I've clicked up the 10.151 Mhz HF link java and I see WB2ZRV-14 is a
motorhome (from the icom he selected to transmit) and is near
Frederick, MD at 38 58.02N by 72 26.31W on course 227 degrees at only
8 knots for some silly reason. (If you click on any station's icon,
the bottom line of the browser will display the data I got this from
in the browser status line. His motorhome must have HF radio
capabilities, of course. The VHF ports have THOUSANDS of contacts,
especially when they're going to work or back home at night during
rush hour. If this station were on your boat, we'd know exactly where
you are located, your course and speed, in realtime, from any internet
point on the planet. You can easily see the advantages of this for
those relatives.

APRS has many other functions as it matures. Copy this line into your
browser:
http://www.findu.com/cgi-bin/wxnear.cgi?zip=29418
You are now looking at a tabular listing of all the APRS Weather
stations around Charleston, SC. (Just replace our 29418 zip code with
yours to see them in your area. Bookmark it and your local hams will
give you realtime local weather WITHOUT all the spam...(c Want to
see what the weather is like where those relatives live? Just
substitute their zipcode. On our 29418 list, you'll see a bunch of
non-ham weather stations starting with CW and a number. Those are the
weather stations of our very active NWS office. The NWS has its own
"club call" WX4CHS. The CW stations are not on ham radio, but WX4CHS
transmits them to the rest of us, automatically, 24/7. The local
internet-to-ham radio interface node picks them up off the air.
WA4USN-3 is located on board the US Naval Museum aircraft carrier USS
Yorktown (CV-10) in Charleston Harbor at Patriots Point Naval Museum.
I see their rain guage needs to be reset or fixed...(c;

So, as a non-ham (yet) and therefore ignorant, is the APRS-GPS cited a
product name or a ham specification?

APRS belongs to Bob Bruninga, its inventor. But, Bob allows everyone
to use it. The ham radio manufacturers have taken this, like IBM has
taken to Linux, and incorporated it into their rigs for sale.

If the former, how does one acquire
such a beauty?? If the latter, I presume one must first be a ham, and
second, be aboard, to legally use this device? And, if so, how does this
compute in terms of a theft, when the licensee is obviously not aboard?

Yes, you'll need your technician-class ham license to get on VHF.
You'll soon appreciate being able to get on the thousands of local
2-meter and 440 Mhz UHF powerful repeaters hams run across the planet.
WCSC-TV and a group of local hams sponsor a VHF repeater on 147.300
Mhz (upshift) which listens for your voice calls on 147.900 Mhz. The
repeater is on a platform at 1,800 ft over the ICW and provides solid
communications for about 80 miles inland and 100 miles to seaward for
the ham community. All are welcome to use it that have ham licenses,
like most repeaters sponsored by clubs and individuals across the
planet. Our VHF radios aren't limited to this independent boater
line-of-sight nonsense like marine VHF. Other repeaters in our area
are all linked up with UHF radio links so you can stand in Charleston
with your 1/2 watt 2 meter walkie talkie and talk to your buddy on his
1/2 watt walkie talkie on the street in downtown Columbia via the
repeater system, 110 miles away.....all with a radio that fits in your
shirt pocket....and as with all ham radio, at no charge whatsoever.
We do it for the fun of it...(c;

You need to contact your local ham radio operators to see when their
club is giving the next radio class and when their local volunteer
examiners are giving the FCC tests so you can get your OWN ham radio
license. I wouldn't go to sea without it! Millions of hams are
willing, ready and able to help you run phone patches, relay messages,
send emails for you and make schedules...across the planet. That
hasn't changed since radio was invented..... The technician test is
REAL EASY NOW with no Morse Code nonsense to learn! Add the simple
5wpm Morse test and you're on HF ham bands! Befriend your local hams
in your local ham club. Some of them have phone patches on HF! TAKE
'EM OUT SAILING! We don't bite! Some of us are a little strange,
being nerds like me...(c; Going to sea? Your new ham friend will
make a schedule with you on some great ham frequency at a specific
time. You call him from your boat, he calls Mom on his phone and
flips a switch. VOILA! FREE PHONE CALLS! All you had to be is nice.
He cannot charge you a dime and does it for the fun of it. If Mom
lives in his town, it isn't long distance. If she is, he calls her
collect and lets her pay the ld charges from his house to hers for the
calls. The ONLY thing you can't do on ham radio is BUSINESS....NO
BUSINESS. Ham radio is forbidden from conducting business because of
telephone company pressure on the regulators. The test is simple.
"Does either party have a money interest in this call?" If yes, it's
forbidden. If it's questionable, consider it forbidden. Hams have
gotten this silly rule slackened of late. You CAN call ahead on ham
radio to make hotel reservations, call a towtruck, etc., to benefit
the ham on the road.....

Get your ham license, Skip! It's still quite a fraternity. You'll
meet some awful nice people. You come into a strange port, look up
the local repeater in your repeater directory and call CQ (anyone).
Someone will answer and help you find that great little restaurant
they know about. Invite them down to the boat for a drink and ask 'em
where you can get that oddball impeller for the cooling pump. Locals
know where everything is. A German yachtsman came into Charleston in
a beautiful 50-something foot cruiser. He called on the repeater,
here, and made a bunch of local friends. That gave us an excuse to
have a little ham party and we loaded his boat with provisions, fixed
his electronics, got him some new radios and made friends for life.
I've even talked to him from his home station in Austria. I also
talked to him in Tahiti last year on his last circumnavigation.....

On Sun, 11 Jan 2004 05:49:40 GMT, (Larry W4CSC) wrote:

Of course, we COULD hide an APRS-GPS 50 watt 2 meter ham rig aboard in
an inconspicuous place leaving it running 24/7 with its burst
transmissions on the national APRS frequency linked to the
internet.....

Or for those that are not Hams and just want a box to install and
forget

http://www.seakey.com/




/Marcus

--
Marcus AAkesson
Gothenburg Callsigns: SM6XFN & SB4779
Sweden
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