You can use the track map from the website as a base map, all you need to do is tell Xastir where the corners of the image are in relation to the face of the Earth (the .geo file). You could also capture the satellite photo from Google Earth, and create a .geo file for that image.
--- Ive just this moment finished making my first map, discovered that they have to be square in the process.
My preference would be to capture a large image (2000 pixels across or so) from Google Earth, and use that.You would be able to see a fairly decent image of the track when zoomed in, or back out to watch the full track.
--- 640x640 fit everything just fine.
How many safety vehicles are you tracking? Crash Trucks, Ambulances, Tow Trucks, etc? Are you looking at time slotting them, or having them use SmartBeaconing with rapid update parameters when in motion? Smart Beaconing would have only the responding vehicles making noise, but could have the occasional packet collision. Time slotting would have the packets running all the time, with constant monitoring of operational status of each tracker. With low power handheld radios, you shouldn't have to worry about current drain too much. The safety vehicles will probably be running enough to never worry about killing the battery.
--- The 25hr race test will be pace car only, and I will be adding vehicles to the system starting with the first races in February.
I'd probably run timeslotting with every safety vehicle reporting once per minute as a minimum. I'm not sure if the OpenTracker is able to sync to the GPS time embedded in the NMEA strings or not. You would want to keep the time slotting accurate. Depending on the number of safety vehicles, you might be able to do 30 second updates. (This is on a private frequency, not 144.390... don't get your panties in a bunch!)
--- Ya..were on our own licensed RF..not HAM. Not sure what to do with timing yet, most of the time we'll have no more than 5 vehicles to track, at Mid Ohio I could have up to 12-15. I'll have to play with the options in the opentracker on the sending side, to see how I can most intelligently deal with near-real-time updates. When in action, 30s is far too slow, but I dont see how 5 vehicles could xmit updates every 5 seconds without lots of collisions.
It sure would be great to have a realtime tactical map of the location of all safety assets at all times. This is a perfect example of textbook use of APRS as a real time tactical display tool. With APRS on the Safety crews, and Xastir dead reckoning their movements, you'll have just about the same thing. BTW, beautiful facility! I LOVE turn 5! That must give a great sphincter muscle workout to all the drivers. The rest of the course is pretty wild as well. What a workout for the bike riders!
--- Depends how you take it. Normal track path is CCW, and up to the top of 5 is no challenge, but coming down is the trick, get it wrong and youre sideways instantly. Around the bypass is lff camber, fast, peaking..and where the two paths intersect the asphalt has a transition..thats a LOT of fun. CW direction both ways around 5 are very fun..total amusement ride. http://www.speedtoys.biz/downloads/Sequence.mpg is a set of videos from a few years ago I strung together in my instructor car, I dont hany any videos from the racecar for download. _______________________________________________ Xastir mailing list Xastir@xastir.org http://lists.xastir.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/xastir
