In an actual disaster there’s no script

• Kenneth Finnegan W6KWF (twitter | blog)

This talk is interesting for the scope and obvious professionalism and how the group has without apology used a mix of commercial and amateur radio equipment and frequencies to support a large sporting event. Our skill sets need not be limited to only that which our Certificate of Proficiency allows; we are radio communicators who can always use the right tool for the job at hand.

The APRS configuration is of particular interest to VECTOR.

• 20 APRS trackers, a variety of personal and club owned, many Bionics MicroTrak All-In-One.
• 40 second beacon interval; not using the standard local APRS frequency allowed for this; devices configured for time-slotting.
• 3 i-Gates linked back to a separate APRS console not linked to the Internet (not unlike what VECTOR has done at Incident Command Post for Celebration of Light).

Finnegan is well known for writing his MSEE thesis on Examining Ambiguities in the Automatic Packet Reporting System. He is also a maintainer of the Aprx package.

His thesis is an interesting read - you will undoubtedly learn something about APRS you didn’t know (and that writing a standard early on in the life of APRS would have been nice!); see the following video for his defense of his thesis: