Just a quick post to describe some success I've had with a simple APRS Sgate configuration. Call sign N8QH-10.

I've been running an APRS satellite gateway (Sgate) gating APRS RF traffic to the Internet from Sunnyvale, California (about 30 miles east of the Pacific coast). The farthest station I've gated thus far is N0AN-6 near Des Moines, Iowa; a distance of 1,515 miles, or about half way across the North American continent. Here is the packet:

20100704071159 : N0AN-6]APRS,RS0ISS-4*,qAR,N8QH-10:=4205.48N/09400.76WS73' Via Sat {UISS52}

My setup is a simple classic Marconi 19.25 inch vertical antenna feeding an Advanced Receiver Research model SP144VDG 24 dB pre-amplifier, a Kenwood TM-71 transceiver, AGWPE software TNC, and UI-View on a Windows XP platform.

Downlink (and uplink) frequency is 145.825 MHz.

I'd like to stress that the antenna is as "minimalist" as one can get: it's comprised of nothing more than a vertical piece of wire cut to resonance and two horizontal pieces of wire for a ground plane.

73

Patrick
N8QH