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3325.15 Miles, 15 States, and we’re home.

Kris — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 20:00:57 +0000

Just a quick post to report that we pulled in yesterday around 3:00PM. Some quick stats from the trip:

3325.15 Miles (from NJ)
15 States
48:56 Drive time
67.9 MPH Driving average
1291 APRS Packets
27 MPG
123 Gallons of gas
$215 on gas card

I will have a full update with pictures, etc, later ~~tonight~~ three weeks from now.

OK

Kris — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 04:49:17 +0000

Total Miles: 1894.28
Weather: Clear and cold
States: TN, AR, OK

The extra hour from CST that got us to TN last night helped get us going at a decent time this morning. New years day on the I-40! Another 600+ miles under foot. The highlight of the day would be the guy in the Tahoe that drove off from the gas station without a brain… *KaChunk! I turned around to see the truck 10 feet away with the nozzle and the hose still attached to the car, but no longer attached to the pump. Break away hoses for the win.

For those of you just joining us, the rally car can be tracked here or on APRS.fi by searching for KI6IUC-9.

Weekend in Maine

Kris — Sun, 28 Dec 2008 15:12:21 +0000

Even though other transportation was offered, we stayed firm to our decision to drive the rally car to and from my parents house in Maine. This gave us a chance to test out systems and see how the car will be set up for the USA trip. On Saturday I took it to the car wash to prep it for the sticker cover up. It was still very dirty from Intl’ Rally New York. I was able to tweak the APRS configuration and hopefully we’ll have a better track on the way home. I now have a monitored frequency programmed into the APRS packet – 146.550 We’ll see if we make any contacts with that.

I got out the white vinyl we brought and now have the trunk, numbers, and reflective stickers covered up. Much more subdued from the back – a little less identifiable. If 10 was a rally car in full sticker trim with a giant 761 on the side and 1 was a stock white Dodge Neon… We’re right around a 9.8 now.

We’re heading out in a little bit back to NJ. We’ll be stopping in New Hampshire to meet up with friends. We’re now out our furthest North Eastern point – and it’s all West and South from here. I’ll try to get some more pictures posted when we get to Jersey.

Road Trip USA! III

Kris — Sat, 20 Dec 2008 02:19:02 +0000

It’s time once again for road trip USA. Similar to RTUSA-II we’ll be driving the Dodge Neon Rally Car across the country from Maine to California. Only this time we’ll have as much equipment as possible to make the journey safer and go by faster. We stopped by AAA and got our trip-tic + maps + tour books. For ham stuff, I’m planning APRS tracking and we’ll have the 2 Meter 60W mobile ICOM, my FT-60 hand-held and a GPS receiver (that hopefully we can get to display APRS data). Instead of GPS on the laptop (we’ll take that as a backup) we’ll have a smaller stand alone unit. I’m going to try to log some mobile contacts and will be polling received APRS data for local repeaters and frequencies. As usual the rally car will be KI6IUC-9 and can be tracked here or on APRS.fi. For tunes, we’ll have some AC powered PC speakers zip-tied to the dash board, hooked up to a new XM Radio receiver.

For the route we’re going to attempt an I-40 crossing. Sure, it’s safer to travel on the I-10, but I just hate that drive across Texas. “Hey, we made it to Texas!” (next day) “I guess we’ll stop in Midland… Texas…” (next day) “Why are we still in Texas?!” The pan-handle is the length of NJ, so it’s as much TX as I want to see this year. We’ll be swinging up to Maine to visit my parents the weekend after Christmas. Skip back to NJ for a night or two, pack the car and then head out. Stopping first in Baltimore to see friends. We have planned to do some travel on the Blue Ridge Parkway. We’re hoping for Nashville or Memphis for New Years Eve, which either way should be fun. A stop in Phoenix to see friends, then a final push for Southern California. Five days maybe. Here’s what the route looks like in Google Maps. 3,315 miles We’ll try to chew off 700-800 miles a day, which would not be a grueling pace were it not in a car setup for stage rally.

We’ll be blogging from the road as much as possible this time. Hotels now routinely have free wifi, and we’re war-driving professionals should it come to that. Look for posts tagged with the new RTUSA-III logo. I also make a new category called “Road Trip“.

International Rally New York – Here we go!

Kris — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 17:35:06 +0000

Important Links:
International Rally New York 2008 Website
This will be your one stop for information, scores, updates, etc.
Rallynotes.com APRS Rally Car Tracking
Watch live as we run the stages! Keep up with the action.
APRS Tracking at International Rally New York
Watch sweep, volunteers, and radio communications vehicles around Callicoon, NY. (as well as rally cars)

Schedule:
NJ to NY on Wednesday from 12PM to 5PM EST
Reconnaissance on Thursday from 8AM to 4PM EST
Rally Friday from 8AM to 10PM EST (East of Callicoon in Wawarsing, NY)
Rally Saturday from 7AM to 6PM EST (North of Callicoon in Walton, NY)

We will have behind the scenes footage. We will have lots of pictures and video. We are pumped to show the East Coast how we race out in the South West. We are excited to see all of our old rally friends and show them how we party in the California Rally Series. Wish us luck – and the 3 other teams from the West Coast – Brian Scott and John Dillon in Open 4WD, Jimmy and Melissa Keeney in Prod 4WD, Mitch Williams and Alix Hakala in Open 4WD. International Rally New York – Here we go!

UPDATE: Check out the comments – we have internet access and have been posting.