Hi Andy, use HF would be my response! One of the VK1 amateurs likes to head off into central Australia where there is absolutely no VHF APRS coverage for many hundreds of km. He has a dedicated 30m radio and antenna in the 4WD and beacons away for the whole trip. Makes it easy to keep an eye out for him - from memory he also uses HF email to send back text for uploading to his blog (via another VK1 amateur), so we can also keep an eye out on his activities.
Matt
VK1MA
Would something like this work for you? One should be able to get a spot posted into the APRS2SOTA gate via 30M…
http://wa8lmf.net/APRS_PSK63/index.htm
Later,
Todd KH2TJ
Thanks Todd, that looks to be very interesting. Will have to spend a bit of time looking through that site and fully digest what is discussed there. Hadn’t really thought about the issues of packet on HF - PSK63 looks to be a better solution particularly for lower powered portable setups.Thanks for the heads-up on that idea.
Matt
VK1MA