Radio Mobile Deluxe and AGWPE
Radio Mobile Deluxe (RMD) is a program that predicts
radio propagation and signal path quality over specific terrain using digital elevation maps. It
is quite an amazing and powerful program.
One of its features allows you to capture and plot
APRS packets on the elevation maps using AGWPE. You can then "see" how well APRS digipeaters,
home stations, and mobile stations will "hear" other's packets.
You can download the RMD files at:
Français:
http://www.cplus.org/rmw/index.html
English:
http://www.cplus.org/rmw/english1.html
Note that RMD is difficult to setup and learn, and
downloading digital elevation map data can be time consuming if you only
have a dial-up internet connection. General instructions for program use
are beyond the scope of this web page, but the specific setup for AGWPE is
as follows:
1. Install and configure AGWPE and first test that AGWPE is
working with
AGWTerm.
2. Install and configure RMD. Create an RMD map for
the APRS coverage area you wish to examine (see RMD's Help file).
3. From the RMD menu, select
Options, then APRS Options. In the resulting
APRS Setup window, do the following:
- Enter a check mark for
Enable APRS.
- For AGWpacket Host
enter the IP address of the computer where AGWPE is running. The default
is 127.0.0.1, a special IP address that
means 'this computer', in other words the same computer where RMD is running.
If AGWPE is running on a different computer, enter the AGWPE computer's IP
network address.
- For Port, use
8000, the default IP port that AGWPE uses. (It
would only be different if you changed the port number in AGWPE's TCP/IP
interface settings.)
- Press the Apply
button and close the window.
APRS station callsigns should begin to appear on the
RMD map and then disappear when a new station is heard. After the
positions of relaying digipeaters are also received, RMD will then display
the station originating the packet, the digipeater(s) it was heard
through, and signal path lines connecting all of them.
To "permanently" display an APRS station position,
use the lower half of the APRS Options window
to make an APRS station in the left column become an RMD network "unit":
check mark an available unit name/number in the right column, then
highlight the APRS unit in the left column and press the arrow key between
the two columns.
You can also add the APRS stations into a RMD
"network" if you want to further examine APRS coverage and the APRS
digipeater network, but explaining how to do that is beyond the scope of
this page. You'll have to work with and learn RMD.
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