Naval Academy Radio Club's
2006 Army/Navy Football Run LIVE Tracking Page

USNA Satellite Ground Station, Bob Bruninga, WB4APR
W3ADO Radio Club, Midn 2/c Watters, Vigil and Chief Snyder

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Annual 13th Company Football Run: At noon Friday, 1 Dec, over 100 midshipmen from the 13th Company began running the Army/Navy game football 130 miles from Annapolis to the stadium in Philly. At 1600 they are approaching the Inner Harbor, Baltimore, making good about 5 MPH.

USNA Radio Club Communications: For the last 23 years, the USNA Radio Club, W3ADO (the oldest ECA at USNA since 1928), with the help of the AERO Satellite Lab, maintains comms and tracking of the runners using the same kind of amateur radio GPS position reporting technology used in the Academy's PCSAT satellite and the ANDE and RAFT satellites to be launched on 8 December on the Space Shuttle. The small cadre of FCC licensed midshipmen and others interested in wireless technology are geared up for this event. This Football tracking event and midshipmen Sea Trials in the spring are two of the main Brigade support activities for the W3ADO Radio Club.

  • The map below is zoomed into the current area of interest to give the best view of the overall progress. Look carefully for the FBALL and CHASE shuttle vans on the map below. The shuttle ferries fresh runners back and forth. You may also see other amateur radio operators on the map using this technology.

  • The ball usually makes it to Oxford PA Fire Station around midnight (our forward staging area). Then continues on to arrive in Philly by sunrise for the game.

  • This is the final Map of the football van:

    And the final satellite image of the location of the Chase Vehicle

    CLICK HERE for DETAIL FBALL position and see satellite image!
    CLICK HERE for DETAIL position of the CHASE-1/Shuttle Van and see satellite image!

    On those maps, be sure to click on the "satellite" box to get a real satellite image of the exact location from space!

    Go Navy - Beat Army from Space: Last year, the USNA radio club made contact with the crew of the space station and bantered lively about the game. See the 2005 details or hear the audio.

    This system is called the Automatic Position Reporting System (APRS) and is operated entirely by volunteer Amateur Radio operators. Over 30,000 ham radio operators worldwide use this system routinely for public service and disaster preparedness. All you need to know is someone's callsign and if they are transmitting their APRS position, then APRS can not only find them, but the network also supports brief messaging as well. The satellite images are from on-line databases and the web page overlays the live GPS coordinates on them.

    ENROUTE This photo was from 2001 as they headed up route 2.

    ..

    The above maps show the Football and Chase vehicle position in real-time. The following java application replays the entire event as it played out in 2001. It also shows any other APRS operators that are moving too. THis java applet may not run on all browsers.


    javAPRS Commands (Case Insensitive)
    U or D
    		 zooms up/down (you may also use PGup/dn)
    L, S, or M
    		 List stations, Show Status or Messages to Java console
    CTRL or ALT-click
    		 Centers or Zooms map on clicked location
    Arrow keys
    		 scrolls map

    The Remainder of this page is not being used this year (2003)

    Remote Amateur Radio Ken-Cam LIVE Images (2002):

    The following section was updated in real time* via amateur radio link whenever new images were received from the lead vehicle. Most images were taken by the handheld Ken-Cam during changes in runners at each of the legs. (Also, see 1998's Photos). 1999's Photos). Here are the new photos as they came in via HAM radio:.

  • Helmet mounted GPS unit (not used this year)
  • Time Runners
  • 1100 Radio/Chase Vans
  • 1115 Runners (Before shot)
  • 1130 On top of Pendinnis Mount
  • 1145 APRS Operator
  • 1215 Runners
  • 1610 Army AMBUSH!
  • 1620 Army Ambush Standoff!
  • 1630 Handoff Team 5 to Team 6 Ruddy and Curry
  • Thanks to LT Skip Johnson for capturing these at the 7th wing Radio Club and forwarding them.

    These images are transmitted back live via Amateur radio using what is called SSTV, Slow Scan TV. HAMS have been doing this for over 30 years, but now with WEB technology, we can instantly post these live images to our WEB page too...

    APRN BACKGROUND: APRN (Automatic Picture Relay Network) is a live amateur radio channel for the transmission of remote KEN-CAM images. We can even automatically place the station on the map if he uses an attached GPS unit. Thus this APRN web page is automatic and catalogs, indexes and makes available images instantly. There is no better mechanism than APRN for diseminating real-time, in-the-field images from amateur radio operators in support of emergencies or public service events. APRN augments the worldwide APRS amateur radio position reporting and mesaging system by giving vision to remote and mobile operations.

    APRN is a concept presented by Bob Bruninga, WB4APR at the Digital Communication Conference in Chicago, 25 September 1998 and his robotic VISION system presented at the DCC in Baltimore, Sept 1997.

    Here is also a replay of the 1993 Army-Navy game football run to NJ Meadowlands

    And here is a picture of the original GPS tracker built into a football helmet.

    W3ADO Club Station Power Point Summary May, 2007

    Return links:
    SAT-STATION APRN Annapolis

    APRS

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    The Naval Academy is a registered user of APRS and WinAPRS. The purpose of this web page is to show several applications currently in use at this site and should not be considered as an advertisement or an endorsement of any commercial product.