This week, we visit two ham radio Web sites that provide excellent service to the ham radio community via the Internet.

APRS Tracking

The new Track Search page at APRS World makes it easy to find out where you or another APRS station has been lately.

APRS World adds a new Internet tool to its bag of tricks: a new Track Search page that provides a number of neat options for tracking moving APRS stations. For starters, you can display tracks in graphic and tabular format or you can disable the tabular format (Show table? No) and just display tracks on a map. You can prevent bad packets from fouling the display by selecting the "Hide bad packets?" option.

You have two ways of selecting the time period for the beginning and end of a track. You can either enter the exact date and time for the beginning and end of a track or you can enter the number of weeks, days, hours, and minutes you want the track to begin and end. It works like a charm and I was easily able to replay my trip to and from the Dayton Hamvention back in May by simply entering the dates I traveled with WA1LOU-8 on the air.

James Jefferson Jarvis, KB0THN, is the man behind the curtain at APRS World and he is always willing to listen for ideas and suggestions on how to improve the Web site.

A Blog for Hams

HamBlog.Com is a free Weblog (blog) hosting service for Amateur Radio operators. What makes it different from other blogging hosts is that HamBlog is reserved for the use of Amateur Radio operators, and so is geared to reflect the thoughts and interests of hams. The service went live a couple of weeks ago, but it already has a handful of users who are posting their thoughts via their personal ham radio blogs. To sign up for your own ham blog, click on the Register link.

Charles Brabham, N5PVL, is the administrator of HamBlog, and he explains the reason for the existence of HamBlog, "Hams have a lot of information to pass on to each other that traditional information systems such as magazine articles or speaking engagements at fests have proven to be unsuitable for. Weblogs are a highly flexible and individualistic system that may help us to fill in those gaps. It is our hope that the public Weblogs at HamBlog will provide a wellspring of knowledge about Amateur Radio that would be difficult to express, access, or distribute via traditional methods. Perhaps in some way HamBlog will expand the capabilities of our present `Elmering' setup, which many feel has suffered and diminished in recent decades."

Until next week, keep on surfin'

Editor's note: After mulling over the thought of signing up for his own ham blog, Stan Horzepa, WA1LOU, realized he kind of has one already. It's called Surfin' To discuss tracking, blogging, and other important or neat stuff with Stan, send him e-mail at wa1lou@arrl.net.

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