so ive been messing with my APRS setup for a few weeks now and im not sure my packets are actually making it very far. running a TM-D710G into a mag mount on the truck, using WIDE1-1,WIDE2-1 which is what everyone seems to recommend but i live kind of rural and i think there might only be one igate within like 40 miles of me. been watching aprs.fi and sometimes my beacon shows up fine and sometimes it just disappears for like 20-30 minutes at a time while im driving.

i bumped the beacon rate down to every 2 minutes from the default which helped a little i think but honestly not sure if that made a difference or if it was just coincidence. also noticed when i drive through town it picks up way better obviously. should i be adjusting the path for rural vs town or is that more trouble than its worth with a mobile setup. and does anyone actually use WIDE1-1,WIDE2-2 out there or is that considered bad form these days

WIDE2-2 without the WIDE1-1 in front is actually what some guys run out here in sparse areas, gives you two hops off a proper digipeater without relying on fill-in digis. the WIDE1-1 part is specifically for hitting those low-power fill-in digis that a lot of rural areas have deployed, so if you dont have any near you its kind of wasted. worth checking the APRS map overlays on aprs.fi to see what digipeaters are actually in your area and what paths they're honoring, some of the older ones wont relay WIDE2-2 at all depending on their config.

the 20-30 minute gaps sound like you might just be in a dead zone, not much you can do about that unless someone puts up a digi or igate. i had the same issue driving through the mountains and eventually just accepted it. your 2 minute beacon rate is fine, going faster usually just creates more collisions and still doesnt fix coverage holes.

yeah the path thing is genuinely confusing when you start looking into it. i went down a rabbit hole on this a few months ago when i set up my first APRS tracker on a TNC-Pi connected to an old 2m radio. ended up finding a page by WB4APR that explains the whole WIDE paradigm pretty well if you havent read it already.

one thing that actually helped me was downloading APRSISCE/32 on a laptop and watching the raw packets when i was parked near my house, you can see exactly which digipeaters are hearing you and what paths they're using to relay. found out one of my local digis was set up wrong and eating my packets. not saying thats your problem but its worth checking the decoded packets rather than just looking at the map.