Welcome to this TrailRadio blog.  Not surprisingly, we will be talking about Radio and Hiking and what it means to combine the two in some useful way.

So begins a new project to examine if amateur radio and hiking have a symbiotic use for each other.   This site will chronicle the progressive engineering steps to determine if a new amateur radio repeater can serve a reasonable long segment of the Appalachian Trail in northern Virginia.  Of course many current repeater already serve trail hikers admirably.  What we propose to examine is if one repeater can close the link between widely separate sections of the trail with just one repeater.  This is essentially “repeater planning” with a focus on a specific demographic in the AT hiker and thru-hiker community.

We will address engineering challenges and blaze a, pardon the pun, trail through the red tape of paperwork with frequency coordination groups, site logistics, etc.  The hopeful end of this blog will realize a brand new repeater just for the hiking community that will close the communication gap along the trail and serve as a conduit for help should the need arise.  If successful, and even if not, we hope the experiences we document here will help future trail radio planners assess their needs and move forward on repeater installations where practical.

To many of you hikers, this will be about as boring as watching paint drying on a wall.  For those of you with the good sense to carry a two-way radio on the trail, we hope we have your interest and interests in mind.

Cheers

John