Another device to carry....not. May be one of dumbest devices this decade given resources available on a smartphone.
True, Hurrican Maria reminded us about not to depend on commercial infrastructure. As for the pager, it is a cool option for emergency activations and where to tune. This saves precious HT battery life.
You couldn't depend on during any of the big storms. Katrina I had a phone but it was because Nextel came in a setup temporary cell sites and provided city employees with a phones. My personal phone didn't work for weeks.
Cool, I can send a message to my friend and tell him to get on the radio. Oh wait, I can already do that on my cell phone.
I would like to use pagers for calling out volunteers for Search and Rescue and ARES (who supports SAR here in eastern Oregon). I assume that the hotspot (I never used one) is very limited in range. We have lots of mountains but most of the volunteers are centralized and could be LOS through a repeater. Could something like what you described in the video be used for this? (I don't monitor this here so I'm hoping someone might include an @ ARRL email to me) thanks
Is there a way to link a paper into the APRS network, listening for messages addressed to for example K7AA-15?
I wonder how APRS fits in here. If I beacon my position, that seems to be one way, I guess it falls under "telemetry"? BTW, I still carry a pager to this day for our regions Fire paging.
That's a great question. Have not studied it enough to reach a conclusion. I copy ARPS on a couple of different rigs and many times see a designator other than a call sign where the call sign would normally appear. I can't find a call sign anywhere on the screen. I don't know if it's because my screen does not include complete information being transmitted or if there is simply no call sign being transmitted. From time to time will see an aircraft ID but the call sign will appear on another line. There are some weather stations that broadcast from local airports on 144.390 with something like MEDAPHL (exact lettering may be off) but no call sign. I have no idea how this is a legal transmission unless, as stated, my screen is not displaying all the transmitted information.
If the data is entered onto the APRS network via TCP/IP with no RF involved, it's totally legit. That's what most WX stations do along with others that send telemetry. They don't use RF. When you RX these beacons via RF on APRS, you will also RX the call of the station that is sending the information.
That's my point. I am receiving the information via RF but can't locate the call of the transmitting station. It's either because the device I am using is not capturing all of the information or no callsign is being transmitted if there is one.
Gotcha... now I know what you were saying There will be a call sign if the data is sent with RF but, like you said, depending on what you're using you're probably just not seeing it.
