N1ATP

2025 Roadtrip MA-IA-SD-WY-CO and Return

DRAFT in PROGRESS – There will be updates during the trip

It is a long time since our last major road-trip and a ham-blog. This time we are using my wife’s sedan with no permanent antennas, glass roof and aluminum trunk lid. No mag-mounts will work!! The trip is planned from the last week in June to Mid July, 2025.

The Drive

Map MA-CO
MA-IA-SD-CO

Making Miles:

This is a lot of driving and our efficiency in somewhat planned. Over years of road trips we have found that Love’s Truck Stops has generously synchronized their locations to our driving habits (you think?). For decades we travelled with a dog and found that about 3.5 hours between stops is balanced for us. We use their app and lay out fuel, food and comfort stops. It is all a plan we can easily follow. We plan 20 minutes at each stop and typically two to three stops per travel day. This plan will support us to Rapid City. The there will be a blend of local truck stops and Love’s. Can’t beat the convenience!

Additionally, we have our “mandatory” stop at the world largest truck stop IOWA80TruckStop.com

Stage 1:

  • MA to Toledo/Perrysburg, OH area for sleep,
  • 600 miles

Stage 2:

  • Toledo/Perrysburg, OH to Des Moines, IA to visit friends for a night
  • Stop at IOWA80TruckStop.com
  • 570 miles
  • Estimated 1200 miles running total

Stage 3:

  • Des Moines, OH to SD for wife’s family and alumni for a week.
  • 370 miles
  • Estimated 1600 miles running total

Stage 4:

  • SD to Steamboat Lake, CO
  • Must stop at WALL DRUG for Coffee and famous Caramel Rolls – read the fascinating story behind this great destination (or coffee stop).
  • Stop at 3 Sisters Truck Stop in Manville, WY. This stop is new for us, but the food ratings makes it mandatory.
  • Spend 3-5 days at Steamboat Lake.
  • 700 miles
  • Estimated 2300 miles running total

Stage 5:

  • CO to the Black Hills of SD to celebrate wife’s birthday in Deadwood. Wild Bill Hickok was shot in Saloon No 10 with a pair of aces and pair of 8’s (all black) in hand.
  • Spend a few more days in SD.
  • 700 miles
  • Estimated 3000 miles running total

Stage 6:

  • Back towards the Berkshires of MA
  • Sleep Stop? (Joliet, IL Perrysburg, OH or??)
  • 800 miles’ish
  • Estimated 3800 miles running total

Stage 7:

  • Finish the drive to the Berkshires
  • 800 miles’ish
  • Estimated 4600 miles running total
  • In reality we’ll be above 5000 miles

Ham Radio:

The use of mobile ham voice will be limited since my wife feels it is an unnecessary distraction in our car. Then again, in our numerous trips to the mid-west I have had dismal luck with simplex on the road. Traditionally, I have been monitoring 146.52 and 446.0 with no contacts east of the Missouri River.

Some years back I took a day trip from central SD to Mt Rushmore. Crossing the Missouri River I called out on 2m simplex and NC7R from my area in CT answered. He was on a road trip from CT to WY/MT area. This was totally uncoordinated (should probably have played the lotto that day?!), but what’s the chance to “meet” your ham neighbor from CT on I-90 in SD within 20 miles of each other?

APRS:

The car will have my PSE “Orange Box #2” in the back seat. This Harbor Freight suitcase has:

  • Automatic power selector – main car power and backup LifePo4 battery
  • Onboard 16AHr LifePO4 battery. It will run the kit as an APRS-IS Tracker for 12+ hours.
  • Peplink BR1 LTE Router with WiFi and Ethernet network.
  • WX3in1 APRS TNC by Ethernet
  • SharkRF Openspot1 DMR by Ethernet
  • APRS I-Gate Receiver will be turned off to get valid data on area RF digi coverage.

The car will beacon APRS two ways:

  1. by LTE APRS-IS as N1ATP-1 to have solid coverage so our family can follow us realtime, and
  2. as this trip’s “ham experiment” running an Byonics MT-RTG with 10w RF Alinco DR-135T with a marine Mushroom GPS Antenna as APRS with a trunk lip-mount 2m antenna as RF Tracker N1ATP-6. N1ATP-10

The expectation is for spotty APRS RF digi coverage East of the Missouri River and improved coverage as we get further West past the Black Hills of South Dakota. You can watch a combined APRS map of Cell and RF based APRS Map.

NEW APRS PROJECT

More to come.

DMR:

Orange Box #2 has a DMR Hot Spot normally on Brandmeister TG 31252 (Berkshires). Depending on how crowded we are in the car, I may have a HT monitoring this.

The primary hotspot is a SharkRF Openspot 1.

I will also have an Openspot 4 Pro with me for occasional portable use.

The Radios

DMR doesn’t work without a radio (maybe time to think about a SharkRF M1KE?) so I’ll have to bring a few:

  1. Anyone AT-878 (plus letters). This is my go-to ham HT for Analog and DMR.
  2. Alinco DR-135 for 2m voice to be mounted on Orange 2 Box.
  3. Misc Motorola MotoTrbo HT’s. These are the go-to for fam-comm (yes, nationwide biz-license and GMRS) and DMR Ham by Hotspot.
  4. Toughbook for programming.

Internet

Other than cellphones, we have a portable “ATT internet at home” service with both ethernet and WiFi and unlimited data. This is the simple on the go network box for networking including APRS and AREDN.

On the Go Blogging

I am not good at this at all. There may be a blog addition here and there?? Check out the right side-bar.