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Ham Radio A.P.R.S. Install Experiences And Insights

April 26, 2009

My recent experience during the install of an A.P.R.S. (Automatic PACKET Reporting System) tracker in my car for use with ham radio prompted me to write a blog post so that others might have a better experience in their install.  Mine was not bad, but could have been better.  Any negative experiences were not related to customer service or product quality.  Rather, there were a few challenges along the way and some learning experiences.

For non hams and non APRS savvy types, what I wanted to do was to sort of play James Bond with my own car.  I wanted to put a small device (a mini GPS unit) into or on my car and connect it to a tracker device that reads the data from the GPS unit and lets a ham radio transmit that data.  Other ham radios (there are LOTS of them listening, although never enough) receive those signals and send them into the internet.  Free services like www.APRS.FI receive that data and plot them on Google or other maps on the internet.  So what?  Well, I am a SkyWarn storm spotter.  And I have a Fiancé that likes to know if I am OK, etc..  For example, if I spot a severe storm event and report in, wouldn’t it be nice to have the National Weather Service know EXACTLY where I am at that time?  With that said…

Planning

First do some research and determine just exactly what it is you CAN do with a ham radio and an APRS tracker what exactly it is that you WANT to do and what exactly it is that you can afford to do.  These may be three different things.  Take them in the order presented.  You can’t decide what you WANT to do before you know what you CAN do.  And you can’t decide on what you can afford before you determine what you WANT to do.

Then determine what parts and devices you need to be able to do what you want to do.   Here is a quick list from my project:

·         A GPS unit.  I needed a source of data for the system to send.  I did not have one.  I went with a Byonics GPS2.  It is small.  It worked with my system.  It was a least expensive choice (or at least not most expensive).

·         Power for your GPS unit.  With my choice, the GPS2 unit got power from the Tiny Trak4 tracker unit.  Nice choice – one less cable to connect and secure.

·         A cable to connect your GPS unit to your tracker.  My GPS choice was designed for APRS trackers so it came with this cable.  If you have a Garmin or such type it probably does not come with the cable.  Check with the tracker company to be sure.

·         A tracker unit.  There are many available.  And there are new models and older models available.  Older models will cost less, do less and generally not be as upgradable.  I decided on one from a vendor that could supply all the parts I needed and was a joy to deal with.  My first choice did not handle the cables I needed.  I did not feel comfortable having to deal with one extra company if there were compatibility issues (many companies all saying it’s not their product’s fault).  Also, my first choice was out of stock on inexpensive GPS units and could not tell me when they would be in.

·         Power for the tracker.  On power cables you have multiple choices.  You can hardwire the unit – direct to the battery or into the car’s wiring system.  You could use Power Poles for quick disconnect capability.  Or you can go with a cigarette lighter adaptor.  I did the cigarette lighter adapter because I can reach it while I drive and I will probably (I hope) remember to pull it out when I shut down the car.

·         A cable to connect the tracker to the radio.  Here you may also have a choice.  My radio could have used two cables.  I chose the data port cable.  It just seemed to me that if I was going to transmit data it should go in the data port.  That seemed the most direct route.

·         A cable to connect your tracker to your PC if required.  With mine, I had to program the tracker via my computer.

·         Power for the tracker when connected to the computer.  I had to buy a power supply for this step, but now I have one for general ham radio operations.  And since there was a recession on, I got it at a deep discount.

·         Maybe an adaptor to connect the above power supply to your tracker’s adaptors.  A power pole adaptor or a cigarette lighter adapter female end, etc..

·         Maybe a serial-to-USB converter.  Mine is in the form of a cable.  My PC did not have an older model serial port (9 pin) that my particular tracker required.  Various trackers may differ, but check this out…  Best Buy was able to send me to a local computer dealer that had the cables in stock.

Next, make SURE that all the parts work together.  You may have the nicest GPS unit in the world, but if it won’t communicate with your tracker your ham radio APRS system simply will not work.

Also set aside enough time to patiently work through the challenges of getting your tracker installed.  Patience can be a function of planning.  If you don’t plan enough time you are likely to end up frustrated.

The entire process generally went as anticipated except that I had not realized that I would need a power supply near the computer for the tracker.  One challenge was working with the program on the tracker.  Getting into the options menu was quite like getting into the BIOS menu on your PC.  You have about one second (literally) to send three escapes to activate the menu.  I did not realize at first how fast you had to be for this to work.  Once I did it was pretty easy.  Another challenge was all the options that were available.  Pretty much Greek the first read through.  I did get them all correct except the baud rate.  I had to send an e-mail to Byonics which they responded to the same day.  I also was not sure from the instructions what mode to set my radio to or what frequency.  My fiancé spotted me the frequency and the mode!

OK – this has been a long blog post.  I won’t go into particular tracker models, etc. on this post.  Maybe later.  I hope that this post gives you some ideas for getting started thinking through what it really takes to do an APRS ham radio project.

 

Last word of advice.  Work with an Elmer (an experienced ham) – in my case, my fiancé (Jane – Kd8KRS)  gave me a couple of pieces of information that saved me a lot of experimentation and frustration!

 

AND – when it works…  it is SO worth it!

You can track me via my tracker at my website:  http://hamradioresources.com/aprs

Stay radio active!

 

Jon E. Kreski, AB9NN

http://www.HamRadioResources.com


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