I am not sure why but I finally read how to setup Analog APRS on my BTECH DMR-6x2 HT radio. I want to say that I played with it before but for some reason, I do not think I ever read the setup instruction file that was included with the update that allowed the radio to beacon out packets.
Overall the setup was easy. The only thing I needed to do to get it working after I did the programming was to make sure the GPS was turned on and it got a lock. Once that happened when I hit the PTT it would beacon out a posit packet.
So in some ways this is like my old Kenwood TH-D7G, it will beacon out packets, of course with that thing, I had to supply my own GPS. This radio has GPS unit built in. The thing that this doesn't do of course is allow you to send APRS messages. It does not decode packets, so you have no incoming display of info. Basically the only thing it will do is make the radio a tracker unit.
Which is of course the cavet, if you just need a tracker then the setup makes sense. If you need more, then you are going to likely have to go with something else. Like say a Phone with APRSDroid, and some sort of TNC/or audio cable setup. I have used the BTECH this way and it works pretty good. Of course it's just a lot of equipment to have but it is a portable APRS setup, which is nice. APRSDroid is not the greatest software but I think it's the only one for an Android device. Still if you want more than to beacon out a position, then it a good option if you want to use an Android device.
Well I broke down and emailed the person on charge in the net I was trying to see if I could join. The reply email pretty much said it all.
I’m sorry to report that the net is no longer being held.
The website has much information that is not correct or current.
I have advised the webmaster but the information has not been corrected or removed.
Well so much for that.
Well in a nutshell, there was no net. Hell there was no EchoLink. I tried to connect to the conference and I was not able to connect. That Echolink conference must be down.
While I wait for what I am going to be doing with my radio equipment, I figured I once again try to do a local Net. This one has an EchoLink connection. So I will be monitoring both the radio freq and the EchoLink reflector.
The last few times I have listened, there was nothing. I do remember a few years ago when I was passing through, I did try and managed to talk to a few people during the Net. So at least at one point it was used. I think if I don't get any traffic today, I am going to see about emailing the Net Coordinator. I suspect that they will tell that the Net has been dead for sometime. I will keep post a quick update later today, if anything was heard or not.
Over the last few days, I have been trying to hit some repeaters from my house with my HTs. While there are about fourteen repeaters within 25 or so miles, I found I could only really hit four of them. Out of those four, only a single one was really good, which considering it's only maybe three miles from me, is not too surprising.
One of the things that makes this difficult is that we have a lot of hills and mountains that could be blocking signals. While a chunk of the repeaters were on on the mountains, I may have something in the way.
All of this has lead me to believe that a much better antenna is going to be a good call. I am not sure what antenna I will do yet. I have a few thoughts. I may do a a simple vertical dipole since that seems pretty simple to make. Perhaps even a J-pole for 70 cm, as I am not sure the wife would be down with me doing a 2 meter J-pole, might be too big or ugly for her.
At any rate, it does mean I will need some supplies before I can even test a new antenna.
On a side note, I'd also be down with a small mobile rig. These are the days I wish I still had the D710 I use to have.
It has been really slow the last week with radio stuff. I been on a staycation, but that only meant that I had more house related work to do and not a lot time to pursue any hobby related stuff. The best I have been able to do is to try to look at some possible DIY antennas for the portable APRS Digipeater project. There are of course a few options.
First up of course, would be sort sort of J-pole. For a 2 meter one, it's just under 6 feet. While I think I could build something, I think the size does not fit with my portable requirement unless I built it in a way so that it can break down into something smaller. I'm not sure how well that would work long term.
The next options is some sort of basic dipole. which would have a length of about 3.2 feet, a little over half the length of the J-pole. It's a much simpler build, but I'm not sure how I would have to build it to make it something I could use in a portable setup.
Finally there is some sort of ground plane type antenna. The biggest issue with it that I see is the radial elements of the antenna. which are almost 2 feet and are longer than the vertical monopole. While this seems easy to make as well for a basic one, I'm not sure how I would build it to be portable. I would have to have some way of removing the ground plane radial elements.
I suspect I just need to figure out how to build the basic dipole antenna. That seems like it would be the easiest to setup at least for an initial antenna.
No matter what I am going to need a lot of coax cable. That will be a fun one to explain to the wife.
I have to say getting Direwolf downloaded and compiled was pretty simple. Following the User Guides online to set it up as Digipeater was pretty straight forward. I had two setups.
The first was the tracker. One UV-5R connected to a Mobilinkd TNC and then via Bluetooth to my Android phone using APRSDroid. This was a pretty simple setup.
The second was the Digipeater. A UV-5R connected to my Laptop with a BTECH-APRS-V01 cable. Again a pretty simple setup for testing.
So once I had those setup, I ran Direwolf from the CLI and it started no problem. But it wasn't transmitting to the radio. After a few moments, I released I forgot to put the digi's radio in VOX mode since I don't have a PTT interface. Once I got that fixed and restarted Direwolf. I noticed the digi's packet on APRSDroid. So success there.
The next test was the one that had me stumped. Fromm APRSDroid, I would send a packet out. The digi's radio indicated that it was receiving something, but the packet was not decoded. The only thing I think of is it was an audio setting. Going through the guides I had talked about use alsamixer to set the audio levels. I tried that with as many configurations that I could think of to set. Still no go. So I set everything aside and went work.
While working, I started thinking about what could be wrong here. Finally, I wondered , hey technically my Linux Distro uses pulseAudio. I wonder if that's the culprit. A quick Google search and I come across a PDF document for Direwolf. In it, it clearly states that with pulseAudio, you should use pavucontrol to set the audio. I was like, ok it's worth a try. So after fiddling with the mic settings, there I go back to testing Direwolf.
Much to my surprise, I fire up Direwolf and have APRSDroid send a beacon. Direwolf's output shows the packet. On APRS.fi, it shows that that packet was IGATEd to the APRS-IS servers. Which means I had a success.
Now that I know that Direwolf was pretty easy to configure, I can try to plan out what my APRS Digi will really look like. One thing for sure, I think I want to use a Raspberry Pi for this project. I'll keep all of you posted with progress.
As I have been doing some research on stuff, I found what seems like a simple but vital key into what I may need to build an APRS Digipeater or APRS tracker. It is the Direwolf software. Seems it acts as a software audio based TNC and more.
It has all the feature I need to set it up as either Tracker or Digipeater build in. It even has routing. You could hook up 3 radios, if you had 3 audio interfaces on a computer and then have it setup to repeater packets from one interface over to other interfaces. It can even act as an IGATE. For a tracker, you can hook up a USB GPS puck and will read the NMEA data and then beacon out.
I am going to be testing it out today since I think I have everything I need. I have my laptop that I will install Direwolf on and configure, a BTECH APRS cable, 2 HTs (one for the Digipeater and one tracker), a Mobilinkd, and my phone (Which will run APRSDroid).
I post my results after I run my test.
I am still trying to decide on what my first project is going to be. In the mean time, I am trying to test of the equipment that I do have and seeing what it can reach.
Since I also have a GMRS license, I was able to test two GMRS repeaters that are near me. While I didn't get a voice reply to either of my tests, I did get ID response from at least one of the repeaters. Since many repeaters are setup to do something like that, I feel confident that I am being heard. I suspect that I also hit the other repeater as well. While it did not send a Morse Code Id response, I did get some sort of transmit of dead air response each time I did a test call out.
I still need to test several of the HAM repeaters that are listed. Right now I've been trying to see if my HT can hit one of the APRS Digipeaters from where I am at. From what I can see so far, I can hear the Digipeaters, but I don't think any of them can hear me. I am getting some packets decoded but none of my transmit packets seem to show up on aprs.fi. At least for APRS, I am not too shocked. There doesn't seem to be a lot of APRS activity around here and there are few digipeaters.
I think I will try a few of the HAM repeaters this afternoon. I hope that I can hit a few of them at least.
The hobby is very large in terms of the number of areas that one can focus on. Almost anything you think of that is radio related can be attempted or be a focus. I have given this a lot of thought over the weekend. While I am not 100% sure, I believe I will focus on the following.
As can be seen, there is a certain theme to what I'm looking at. That being the item must be portable. Only time will tell if I stick with those ideas or if they morph into something else.