Tag: aprs

Battery died again

I tried running PocketAPRS from the office without any luck. I’m in the middle of a second floor, not close to a window – and my building is surrounded by other brick buildings… so no real good line of sight. But all the fiddling around took its toll on the battery. After work I set the up the antenna, GPS, and radio – and after about five minutes I was out of juice.

RxPlus is now the software of choice for my TenTec RX-320. I’ve used probably a good half dozen different software programs, but RxPlus appears to top them all. It has a built in database function that allows you to pull up shortwave broadcasting schedules. Just one click and your listening to the BBC or Radio Havana. I was then tooling around the 20m SSB amateur radio band and ran across a SATERN net for Hurricane Rita. I could hear the net control very clearly… I wonder if he was in Chicago?

9pm… and time for the Hampton Roads Public Service Net on 146.97 MHz. Bruce, WB7OTQ, was net control and I got one of the two quiz questions correct. I usually cheat and look the answers up on the internet, but these two were tough… so it took some guessing.

Bicycle Mobile Test #3


Pretty much a complete success. I had a problem with the initial setup on the bike this morning which caused me a little bit of pain until I just reseated the connection on the cable running from the GPS to the radio. I didn’t wear the headset – I was running late and I didn’t want to mess with it.


I had a total of about 12 packets make it to the IGate. In addition to the position, the packet also had info on my speed, direction, and elevation. Pretty cool.

At work I was able to do a little bit of packet radio using my Palm IIIxe. I connected to the digipeater at NASA Langley (LARCND) and made it to KR4MA-1. It was slow going because I didn’t have a great signal, but it was working.

I still have plenty of juice in the battery, so I’m going to hook the D7A up for the trip home.

Second bicycle mobile test


Bicycle Mobile – Test #2

I conducted the second bicycle mobile test this morning, again with mixed results.

– stuck the 1/4 wave mag mount antenna on the metal plate attached to the rack on the rear of the bike. I looped the feedline in an RF choke, securing the loop to the rack and then ran the feedline up to the handlebars.
– secured the GPS into the mount on the handlebars. The mount works very well.
– powered up the HT, set the “A” band to the APRS freq, started the TNC in APRS mode, changed a setting to enable data flow between the GPS and radio, and changed the frequency of the beacon to once every 20 seconds. I then powered the radio down, powered up the GPS, attached the data cable between the two, attached the feedline to the radio, powered up the radio, verified that data was flowing, then locked the keypad to the radio. I attached the connections for the headset and then placed the radio inside the bag hanging from the handlebars.
– put my headest on, then my helmet. The “B” band was tuned to a local repeater that has a morning commute net. On the “A” band I could hear APRS traffic. All good signs.


I departed the house and everything was going well until…. the battery died. I checked www.findu.com and was able to verify that I had one good packet that had made it out prior to the battery going out. So from the standpoint of validating the setup and getting one packet all the way through – Test #2 was a success.

Although I purchased a new battery at the VA Beach Hamfest, I still don’t have it charged yet and I had run the stock battery down last night noodling with the packet and PocketAPRS stuff. I did find the following excellent idea on one of the Yahoo forums that is specific to the TH-D7A:

1628
From: “KC2MMi”
Date: Sun Sep 18, 2005 1:00pm
Subject: Re: Charging time?

… I’ve gone another route, made up a holder
for 10xAA cells and am looking for some black cordura to enclose it in. And
a 2A polyfuse. (Things the local Rat Shack will never carry.) My radio
will be about 2″ taller–but carry an extra 2300mA or so in an external
“foot” that way, at a full 12VDC.

The above sounds like a great idea – and is something I could also store in the handlebar bag.

Another issue I need to deal with is rainy weather. There was a slight drizzle/mist this morning – nothing to worry about. However, if I was to get caught in a downpour, my D7A would be toast. I need to look or a good solution that will allow me to keep the D7A out of the elements but still keep it in operation.

Packet, Palm & TH-D7A


Had a fun time interfacing my Palm IIIxe with the D7A. I was able to easily connect to a local digpeater (NASA Langley) and from there the skies the limit. Packet is cool because it reminds me of the old days with my Apple ][ jacking up the phone bill with calls to BBSs outside the local area.


Had a less than successful time with APRS on the Palm. Sometimes from the house I get tons of traffic and other times I can barely get the areas digipeater.

I also hooked up a KVM switch for the two computers that make up my radio room. Had an initial problem with one of the computers that’s running WinME. I had forgotten how much better WinXP is better than WinME – especially with USB devices.

Tomorrow I’m going to try to hook up my Ten-Tec RX-320.

Software for the Palm


I’ve been trying to connect my Palm IIIxe with the D7A and was partially successful.

PocketAPRS is a software application for Palm PDAs – it allows you to interface between a transceiver and a TNC.

The author of the software, Mike (N0QBF), no longer supports the software. I was able to get a copy of the software, but I’m not sure I’m going to be able to register it – which leads me to believe it won’t work properly. We’ll see.

I did get the software loaded onto the Palm IIIxe and was able to get the Palm to talk to the D7A. But as of tonight, I wasn’t able to receive an APRS packet through the D7A and plot to a Norfolk map on the Palm. Maybe tomorrow.

I’m also thinking of getting a fabricated cable to connect the Palm to the D7A:
https://www.bluehillsinnovations.com/store/index.php?action=item&id=17&prevaction=pricelist

Or if I find some software for my Palm T3:
http://www.mobiledriven.com/2tnctopaunca.html

More noodling


I changed my UNPROTO to WIDE3-3,WIDE2-2 and met with some success. The following came off of www.findu.com:

KD7PJQ-6>S7PV8P,N4EVA-11,WIDE3*,WIDE2-2,qAo,W8JUK-3:`h8?o^2″3r}TH-D7A(G)
KD7PJQ-6>S7PV5S,N4EVA-11,WIDE3*,WIDE2-2,qAo,W8JUK-3:`h8Vo6)”4″}TH-D7A(G)
KD7PJQ-6>S7PU1X,N4EVA-11,WIDE3*,WIDE2-2,qAo,W8JUK-3:`h7C!SE”3z}TH-D7A(G)
KD7PJQ-6>S7PT4S,N4EVA-11,WIDE3,K4ROK-10*,WIDE2,qAo,KF4VTT:`h6N!S6″3x}TH-D7A(G)
KD7PJQ-6>S7PS5X,N4EVA-11,WIDE3*,WIDE2-2,qAo,W8JUK-3:`h5(!]9″3x}TH-D7A(G)


Blue dots above represent a plot from each packet that made it to N4EVA-11.

What I did for this test was to connect the GPS to the D7A and drove out to Newport News and back. While going up and down I-64, I kept getting good packets being digipeated from N4EVA-11. But once I leave I-64, the signal from the D7A (with just a rubber duck, no external antenna) no longer hits N4EVA-11.

Unless I set up my own digipeater, I have to be able to get my packet to N4EVA-11. I believe the key piece of being able to do this while bicycle mobile is to install a decent antenna. I’m going to look for something suitable at the Virginia Beach Hamfest this weekend.

An Email With a Tip


On yesterday’s drive around Langley AFB, I was getting steady packets from AD4NJ and noticed his location was just on the north side of Langley in Poquoson. After getting back home, I went to www.findu.com to take a look at his raw packets in an attempt to determine his UNPROTO path. I also sent him an email with the same question. Here’s his reply:

From : Curtis Overman
Sent : Saturday, September 10, 2005 10:03 PM
To : scott
Subject : aprs

Good to hear from you Scott, I am just setting my APRS station up again. I understand that the unproto path locally is:

(1) Mobile wide1-1,wide2-2
(2) fixed 25w or more wide2-2

73′ Curt AD4NJ

More Noodling


Still not quite getting there. I drove out to Langley AFB and parked in an open area. I sparked up the GPS and was soon passing data between the GPS and D7A. The D7A was soon chirping away as the APRS data was inbound. I verified that packets I received were being passed from the D7A to my GPS and plotting as waypoints (as advertised). I then received a beep and the message “My Position” came up on the D7A display. A good sign – this meant that someone had digipeated my packet and I recived it.

So – I know the GPS and the D7A are talking as they are supposed to. But I think my issue is what to use as an UNPROTO path. RELAY,WIDE? WIDE2-2? WIDE3-3? WIDE1-1,WIDE2-1?

Test #1 Follow Up


Yesterday after work I took the bike over to a location with good line of sight, powered up the GPS, connected it to the D7A, and then powered up the D7A. I was receiving APRS traffic and transmitting my position as a beacon. However, I was unable to receive back my packet – so I’m concluding that my signal was not making it to the local digipeater (N4EVA-11). As the D7A is a dual-bander, I left the top band on the APRS freq and the bottom band I set to scan regular local voice repeaters and the placed the D7A in the handlebar bag. On my ride home I could here APRS traffic and a few calls on the regular repeaters, but I could tell reception was poor. I’m assuming having the D7A in the bag greatly diminishes my over all signal strength.

What I have yet to verify is that data being passed from the GPS to the D7A is being xmitted. My earlier test where I successfully passed a packet to the digipeater was from a lat/long location directly programmed into the D7A, not from the GPS.

Right now for a UNPROTO I’m using WIDE3-3. I’m going to change it to RELAY,WIDE and see if that makes it to the digipeater. In the past (with the TinyTrak) I’ve tried using an UNPROTO of N4EVA-11 and then to the Igate. But that’s never worked. I think N4EVA-11 only digipeats RELAY. I’m going to do a little fiddleing around with it this morning.