APRS and the Appalachian Trail Golden Packet

It should go without saying - APRS is at the heart of our annual event.

The "Golden Packet" is the APRS packet that makes it from one end of the AT to the other.

Here's the challenge. From one year to the next, there are anywhere between 15 and 17 stations lined up along the 2200+ mile length of the AT. APRS, as it stands in standard use-cases, was not designed for use in a linear fashion.

APRS Frequency

The APRS Frequency used throughout North America is 144.390 MHz

We intentionally want to ensure that our APRS traffic is isolated from the standard APRS frequency. For that reason, we use 144.340 MHz but only during the event.