APRS

The Automatic Position Reporting System is free for all to receive, but you must be a licensed amateur radio operator to transmit on it.

google arps gives you a rough idea of what it can do, scroll out and slide to your area and then zoom in to see APRS stations in your area.

Xastir is the recommended software for UBOs. If you use Windows, check out WinAPRS or UI-View. xastir works on Mac, and there is also MacAPRS.

With APRS software you will have exponentially more APRS data, and you can watch mobile stations (cars etc) move around on the maps. You can also overlay maps, so you can have topo, street etc.

APRS packets contain a lot of data, including what we know on the internet as instant messaging (IM). I have had a friend in Canada send me a message to me when I was driving around in Florida before. And APRS is all free, you only need the hardware.

It also provides the data from weather stations (WX), in fact SKYWARN is now linked to APRS. You can watch hurricanes on it as well, in fact that is how the hard data was obtained for the media when Hurricane Katrina hit land, as well as the many that have hit the East coast.