Amateur (Ham) Radio BS and Callsign Thread!

Hell yeah! Awesome! Congrats.

The speed upon license issuance depends on how quickly the VE's submit it to FCC.

The SANDARC folks were like ninjas. Hard to remember, but it was only a few days as i recall.

 

Got totally intimidated by today's lecture on electronics during my class for a basic license.

 

Tested RF-Only APRS for the first time.

Works Great!

 

Cool. Easy Digi by KF5INZ. It uses the VOX circuit of the radio. Very neat. Thanks for sharing. I hadn't seen that before.

 

Yeah, it's pretty neat, I figure this could be used for mini beacons on everybody's rigs. I plan on loaning them out when folks get their technician licenses for our larger trips. 5w isn't much, but it's better than nothing.

The other bit to this puzzle is that I still need to figure out if I can make this work on an FT-2900R. I'd have to figure out how to make a relay to trigger mic keying. The other choice is to go to the more expensive mobilinkd and make a custom cable for the Yaesu.

Of course, I could just get an APRS ready radio, but what's the fun in that?

 

I'm wanting to do the same thing.
I've seen a Bluetooth adapter for aprs and now your picture of a wired adapter.
I also saw a you tube video where the phone was just connected to the radio with a simple audio cable.
Do you know anything about that? It'd be great if I could get away without buying anything else.

 

I like your idea for inexpensive aprs trail beacons. That would be great!

I may end up with a pair of mobilinkd devices in the near future to play with, if i do I'll get cables for baofeng HT and Kenwood mobile.

I'm trying to figure out if the btech mini radio can be used with mobilinkd using the PC data port... No firm answer yet.

 

I think in that configuration, the APRSDroid software works in AFSK mode where it uses the speaker and mic to talk directly to the VOX circuit of the radio.

If I had the right cable, I think I could test it.

 

That's my understanding as well....

I haven't tried the cable yet, but I think it's just a regular audio cable with the same plug that headphones use on both ends of the cable.
I have a whole pile of these that came with monitors at my office with built in speakers. Whenever I get my call sign and can register with aprs.fi I'll give it a shot.

 

I guess it really depends on your budget and your use case. It might be worth thinking about that first. I'm fortunate in the sense that I have a couple of old phones lying around that I can load with APRSdroid or APRS Pro (Android OS 1vs iOS) and I think it's cool to be able to use this initial foolproof method. But honestly, this is just a proof of concept for me to play with before I go full size. Preferably I'd like to have a setup as clean as possible. If you want to play, you can get the kit for $9.95 + 2.60 shipping and build it yourself w/o the fancy enclosure. You can go with a simple cable like KD8RTT, but that won't work in a mobile setup due to ground loop interference, aka alternator whine. A ground loop isolator itself is going to cost ~ $7.99 + tax + shipping + assembly + additional components like audio wire and connectors. You'll be at $20-$50 in a worst case scenario here unless you find yourself scavenging little connectors, parts and wires together.

My goal is to pickup an FT-2900R and setup that at 75w for my beacon with a 2m Firestik. I might be able to run it with the Easy Digi, but then cables are hard to hide. Building a cable for the Mobilinkd unit is cleaner because I only need to supply my Android phone with power and everything else is wireless. But knowing how Bluetooth can be, it may not always work 100% and I might have to fall back to wired connections, but you never know.

Typically you can do data modulation via speaker and microphone, you just need a way to key it, basically the same as the Yaesu FT-2900R. Just find out what the pinouts are for the handheld mic/speaker and wire it up.

 

Oops, I mis-spoke. They have additional units that are made specifically for vox. The one I linked is to trigger the keying via rs-232 from a pc based tnc.

 

From the research I've done APRS doesn't really need, nor is it that beneficial to run a lot of power. 10 watt and a good Antenna works wonders. Firestick Antenna for 2M? I would not consider that a serious choice for antenna, unless looks > performance.

Assuming mobile: here are the usual variety: http://www.universal-radio.com/catalog/hamantm.html

 

Well, we're gonna get an interesting field report in a few weeks.

** edit **

As far as power, we're actually going to be testing the upper limits of range when we head to the Grand Canyon in Thanksgiving and depending if Rock Therapy happens, in May. If you mean the issues with antenna separation and desense on the 2M band. 75W, let alone 10W, will cause desense issues during the beacon transmission regardless of what I do. People have tried at 100feet antenna separation and and it happened anyway. Because of that, I'm actually planning on doing a 10 minute beacon standard interval and text messages sent on an as needed basis.

Other folks have recommended 75W for the locations I plan on hitting up and even mentioned that I shouldn't need to worry too much about the band plans because those areas are devoid of people, so I guess we'll see how this whole project pans out through the rest of the year. If anything, if I don't end up using the FT-2900R in the truck, I'll use it at home.

I do plan on getting a dual/quad band cross-repeat capable unit at some point, I just can't determine if I want to go

$530 ID-5100A DELUXE 144/440 Amateur Radio Mobile Transciver with Touch Screen, D-Star and Internal GPS

ID-5100A, TM-D710G, FTM-400XD, or FT-8900R. And when I get that unit, I'll have to figure out how I'll fit the 857D in there too. Three Radios + my 980 Bearcat is going to make things cramped.

 

Great! Look forward to your report. . Have fun, it's all good.

 

I just got in all the parts to add an antenna to my '16, here's what I got:
Relentless Fabrication hood hinge bracket
Comet CK-3M cable assembly with SO-239 / PL-259 connectors
Diamond NR-770HB dual-band 2m/70cm antenna

Transceiver yet to be bought. My dad has an extra HT (and antenna adapter cable) that I'll be borrowing for a trip in June, and I have yet to decide what transceiver to put in there. I bought the dual-band antenna so that I could play with the 70cm band later but the group I'll be going with just uses 2m (and yes, I have a technician class license that I got when I was 16 and my dad dragged the whole family to those classes).

So the big question is this: the relentless fab bracket is too small for the cable assembly. I need to widen the hole in it from 4/10" to 5/8". What should I use for that? I have a drill, but only bits that go up to 1/2" (and I'm not sure that would work anyway). I could also use a dremel, which I'm thinking is the way to go. Anyone have any tips on how to go about it?

 

Drill and WD-40.

 

I used a smaller cable let me research maybe you can exchange what you bought

 

As in, get a 5/8" drill bit and just use some wd-40 on it? Or during the drilling, or what?

Thanks. From what I was seeing it was either the giant NMO mount or the smaller one that I got, so I figured this would be easier, and I really didn't want to drill any holes in the truck yet (maybe when it's more than 1.5 weeks old ).

 

I run rg316 coax. Specifically the diamond brand c213snmo with a relentless hinge bracket and a diamond nr770hnmo antenna.

 

Yes on the drill bit and yes during drilling. Metal vs Metal, everyone loses their metal. Stop loss by using a drilling lubricant. You could just use motor oil too.