The Frankenstein Build! LT/Expo/Trail rig..and BS

I'm sure I'll be getting in contact with you about making a cable sooner than later

 

Well my dad is the real brains behind that mod. I'll ask him for the schematics, should be pretty easy.

 

There's also the SMSGTE service that you can use with aprs. Basically you send a message to the call sign "SMSGTE" with a tagged phone number plus your message and the service will text your message to the indicated phone number, which is pretty awesome. It connects the two worlds of aprs messaging and standard cellular text messaging. Of course you have to be able to reach an iGate to get to the SMSGTE service, but that's usually pretty doable.
http://smsgte.wixsite.com/smsgte

Correction on the aprs setup, though:
The mobilinkd "TNC2" isn't the standard "TNC" as defined by the term "Terminal Node Connector" because it doesn't actually translate any of the information from the digital GPS packet to the analog radio wave packet that is sent out by your radio. Instead, it's just a Bluetooth modem that receives the Bluetooth signal and outputs the same exact information through the cable to your radio.

The real translation work is all done by the software, like APRSDroid. (As an aside, I almost always use APRSISCE for Windows but can use droid if I don't have my Windows tablet). To illustrate this, within the software you can change the output of the tone to various things, like Bluetooth to the mobilinkd. If you set it to output to your sound card, you can actually hear the packet coming from your device's speaker and it's exactly as you would hear it in your radio. You can even make a cable that plugs into your headphone jack to connect your phone or tablet directly to the radio, bypassing the need for the mobilinkd and it works just fine. The mobilinkd has some additional processing that can improve the function but it doesn't actually change the signal. It's a great little device and I use one and highly recommend it, but I just wanted to clarify that. It starts getting confusing if you get into more complicated packet ham radio in the future.

 

Good info. I dig the SMSGTE thing! Didn't know that. Gonna have to play with that later.

 

That grille has got to be the last piece of chrome that truck has, for the love of God paint it black lol. Chrome is hideous. I just need a set of lf240s and a light bar and side by side our trucks would look pretty dam similar. I'm sure they want to hang out soon

 

We will just gloss over the long travel vs 5100s difference haha

No. Im not painting in black. I like the stock grill a lot on Frank. Its happy looking i think. And its one of the last original parts of Frank haha

They should hang out soon indeed

 

Yes monte we all know you have long travel. I said looks not stats haha. You have silver coils I have silver coils, same damn thing. I hate the stock grille a lot, since when do you care about original. You threw out that privlage long ago ha

 

Im clinging on to that privilege with my last thread hahaha

And its okay. You have a front locker. I don't...for now.

 

Started the trip report from last august for those interested: https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/alberta-bound-beyond.471624/

 

Sounds like I need to familiarize myself with APRS as soon as I can then to get the most of HAM. Im curious how many guys around here actually use APRS. The HAM following alone is relatively small, but gaining attention as of late (at least for the TW guys).

 

there is a HAM thread! Id say it is growing in popularity in the offroad world.

Not APRS...hard to say.

 

Yep, it's definitely helped us in the past! I think Timmy used SMSGTE to talk to his parents about his card issues in Canada. We used it again to plan a rendezvous with my family the night before when we were out of cell service.

Yeah Timmy had to explain it a couple times to me before I finally understood it... Playing around with the various output methods definitely helped my understanding.

Haha, like Monte said, it's tough to say how much APRS is used in the off-road world. It's definitely used but it's more concentrated in some areas over others. In my driveway here in San Diego I can sometimes get 50-75+ stations from Baja to Phoenix to Santa Barbara (200-300 miles away sometimes) within about 15 minutes depending on how the repeaters are working. At the same time I know @m3bassman often gets only a handful during his regular commute. In my off-road experience I usually see no more than two or three people in the deserts on weekends, but many more in other areas I've traveled. In Utah the coverage was really amazing so there are a lot of users out there, especially backcountry wheelers. In Colorado the coverage was pretty good, too, but not quite as many off-road users, I don't think. Just one person's experience, though...

 

I just looked up the activity around you...yeah there's not much there. But also, are you using the standard 6-pin cable that people usually use for the mobilinkd data connection to your kenwood? My set-up wasn't decoding as many packets as I knew it should when I was listening to the audio coming in, so I looked at the mobilinkd yahoo group and there was mention of changing the pins that the mobilinkd cable connects to. For the tmv71a, the standard mobilinkd cable has the mobilinkd receiving information from the squelch-controlled data pin in the radio instead of the standard data pin. I ended up cutting up the mobilinkd cable and making my own to switch the connection so now mine connects to pin 5 and it receives a lot better. It was amazing how much difference it made.

I forget the pin numbers that I switched, I think it was pin 6 to pin 5...I'll have to check it if you're interested in changing the cable.

 

My dad figured out how to tune the TNC's audio patch too and that helped mine a lot.

 

Can't you send a message to someones phones using SMSgte or something like that. I think it has to hit an igate though

EDIT: just saw this was already talked about above..

 

Monte, I'm curios about your long travel front end. How do you like it now that you've been running it a while? Anything you would do differently? I'm about to pull the trigger on my very own MCM kit, so looking to you for your opinion.

 

No regrets at all. I freaking love it.

In fact i hate not having LT on my other tacoma for offroading. Its a night and day difference. Well worth it. You won't have any regrets.

I can't wait to beef up the rest of the truck to take full advantage of it.

 

Great to hear. I'm going with the ADS coil-overs too. What spring weight did you go with? Did you get your axels from Matthew?

 

I got the axle's from Matt yes. ADS is the way to go for sure!

I'm running 16''x700lb coils right now. But my truck is a heavy bastard. I'd like to try 18''x600lbs though

And 18' by 500lbs would be interesting on a lighter truck. Or just 16''x600s are pretty standard.

 

Thank you for the great info. This helps a lot since you're actually running/testing this stuff. Did you run the LT kit with the stock bumper? Approx how much "over stock" extra weight do you have up front? I've got the v6 as well so that'll help me gauge the weight I'll need to go with.