Chuck Cox wrote in
:

I'd not only appreciate any new ideas you might have, but also let me
know if someone else has already done any of these ideas, I don't want
to re-invent the wheel. I'd also appreciate any pointers to free
online resources that might be useful.



A webpage-based location system so family and friends can find a
cruiser's location with either a simple manual entry from the cruiser,
or an automated GPS system such as APRS we hams use to find out buddies
and their conditions.

The manual system would be simple, open the main webpage, click UPDATE,
username/PW to prevent mischief, fill out a webpage form.

Software for the cruiser's laptop would read his GPS data off his
interconnected GPS and do the update automatically as soon as he is in
range of any internet connection, wifi or cellphone. Let it boot in
background so's not to disturb him after initial installation and setup
at startup. Don't hound him if the net is not available, but store his
TRACK from his GPS to a database that will upload to the website so his
friends can see his track on the webpage once he gets in range of the
net, again, then dump his track data to the server for updating his trip
log, speed log, etc.

Here's what the hams have been doing for years.....

Bob Bruninga initially designed the system to track Naval Academy boats
up and down the coast. He's WB4APR on ham radio and on the staff of
USNA. See the system at:
http://www.ew.usna.edu/~bruninga/aprs.html
Many famous satellites have had APRS on board.

Other hams provide the online servers from:
http://findu.com/

Cruising has needed this for years. There's an expensive commercial
system used by some of the offshore racing organizations, but nothing
for the common cruisers except APRS on 10.151 Mhz on HF, where the hams
swap data over long ranges just fine, 24/7.

Users would merely open the webpage, enter the boat name and the Google
Maps/Earth or Virtual Earth/maps interface would place them.

Some places have AIS websites where AIS equipped boats in range of these
shore stations can do this kind of thing, notably:
http://www.shipais.com/index.php
His system has grown to be enormous around the whole of the UK, now. It
started out just doing Liverpool, but great support and wide acceptance
of his OPEN SOURCE, free system has helped make it great.