"of the grid" spotts / alerts

Hi all.

This summer, most likely the first week of July i will hike trough the Norwegian wilderness area known as “Hardangervidda”

If i manage to put together enough money for an more portable radio than my IC706 , like an kx3, i will attempt to activate at least three of the six summits in the area. LA/HL-004, 005, 006, 007, 008 and 009. But since the only plan we have is where to start and where to end the trip, which summit and when is hard to alert.

So to the question. What are my options for self spotting or alerting when being says away from any cell phone coverage.
I plan on bringing my android phone with me, and i have started to experiment with the pskmail app. This will let me send aprs and small e-mails over hf if the 30m conditions are good.

I have done a forum search for aprs spotting, but most of the threads are old, and most of the links are dead.

Any ideas.

Thank you.

  1. De la4tta. Erlend

The APRS2SOTA gateway is run by Stewart G0LGS, you can PM him from here for the very latest info on how to use the gateway.

Out of cell phone coverage you have 4 options.

  1. Post a general alert (ie. LA/HL-???) for every day you could be active, use CW to call CQ and the RBNgate spotter will spot you if you are heard by a skimmer.
  2. Use APRS as you have considered, maybe you will need 30m HF APRS rather than VHF.
  3. Use satellite based system. I have something that works using Iridium satellites but it is expensive unless you intend to use it a lot. (About 0.25Eu / spot message and about 300Eu for the hardware)

Plus no doubt when somebody hears you, an spot will be placed, its pretty good like that on here.

Look forwards to more LA Sota on the bands :slight_smile:

Karl

If they hear me. :wink: But yea it usually picks up after one or two qso’s.

Thanks for the info mm0fmf. I will do that.

FYI. The Hardangervidda trip i s cancelled due to the extreme snow conditions in the area this summer. I will however attempt to activate LA/BU-006 and LA/BU-041 Monday- Tuesday next week. Maybe also 036 if time permits.

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