AT Golden Packet Event 16 July 2016
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9600 baud worked as well as 1200.  North Carolina to NY in 5 hops.
 
Despite the hornet stings, blownout tire, abandoned vehicle, forgotten 
date, blown radio, hot weather, and old Age, the Annual Appalachian 
Trail Golden Packet Event was mostly a success and it was the first 
time we switched to 9600 baud and found performance unaffected by the 
data speed. Intermod and interference on mountain tops remains a 
problem at some sites, but 9600 baud works! 
 
There were some broken links that limited the longest link to be from 
North Carolina to Masachusetts, with small links at the end, but the 
focus this year was on the switch to 9600 baud. After the switch the 
9600 baud data was connected from North Carolina to PA and NY to Vermont 
with solid links. More detail will follow as reports are filed. Another 
new data point came from Slide Hill where an alternate path from PA to 
Connecticut was found to work as well as Sams Point. LOTS of details 
will be filled in by folloup reports on the 
http://aprs.org/at-golden-packet.html web page.

A new  mountain in NY, Slide Mountain (the highest mountain in the
Catskills) showed up and had great links to Greylock and MT Equinox 
as well as south to Camelback and Sam's point.  There is excitement 
that this one new hill might be able to replace to of the original 
hops.  The down side, is that it is over a mile hike from the nearest
parking.  

Again, 9600 baud has little advantage to normal APRS  single packet 
operation and mobile operation, but this test was focused on testing 
the links for a potential level-4 network which can perform quite well
at 9600 baud as it amortizes packet overhead in what is typically 
longer packets on data transfers..
 
Bob, Wb4APR