On Sep 19, 4:55*pm, CindyB wrote:
Folks:

Many pilots have Spot tracking systems. There has been conversation
about the awkward access to pilot's flight tracks, antenna
sensitivity
to placement/orintation, drop outs in tracks.

If you would like to see a more mature system, with public display,
real time access, user selection of ID messaging, self selected
reporting intervals, nationwide/worldwide coverage, historial
archiving of
tracking, try APRS on amateur radio bands.

The huge differences between APRS and Spot a
no subscription fees and
public access to tracks and
Altitude readout in track.

To see our neighborhood of pilots, browse towww.aprs.fi.
In the track call sign window enter: *KI6RFR-7, KM6TS-7 and NPAZ-7.
Choose a Show Last: *time of three hours or so.
You can also enter any one call sign, slide over to the Select Date
window,
and enter any year, and then date select under that for the archives.

You can see the natiowide coverage of digi-peaters at this page:http://wa8lmf.net/APRSmaps/NorthAmericaSmall.htm

You can find out about amateur licensing at:www.arrl.org/

Some cool, low-cost hardware, for the solder-gun talented:http://www.byonics.com/microtrak/

A history and background of APRS development at:http://aprs.org/

My guys flew today, yesterday, and now....
and shouldhave tracks fro you to follow tomorrow also.
I'm going out to help park a few on the ramp.

Best wishes,

Cindy Bwww.caracolesoaring.com

Good stuff, Cindy.

While Spot will work in extremely remote areas where APRS wouldn't, in
fact there are few areas where APRS isn't available.

The better update frequency with altitude information plus far lower
cost make APRS very attractive for operations where gliders rarely, if
ever, fly beyond APRS coverage.

Given the extremely low cost for APRS, there's no reason not to use
both. APRS could be the standard for real-time tracking with Spot as
the emergency backup or when flying really remote areas.

The real knock against APRS is it isn't a 100% 'checkbook' solution -
you have to invest some intellectual currency to get the technical
license and get the equipment. With Spot, you just spend the money
and turn it on.