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.
I always things a good place to start is knowing what resources you have to work with. In my case part of those resources is knowing what equipment I still have for Ham radio and Electronic work.
And of course, I have my Phone and a Laptop.
Overall, not a lot to begin with, but at least it is something.
Greetings. A beginning is always a hard thing to do. I thought an brief introduction was in order for a start.
I am kd7jny, I have been an amateur radio operator for a long time. More exacting, I have had my license for a long time. I started off with a tech license. I held that for many years. While I did want to eventually get my general, it took until they dropped the Morse Code requirement for me to get my general. For some reason, I just could never get the knack for listening and copying code. I've held my general for a long time. at least since 2000. It's funny that I'm sort of fuzzy on all my dates. Needless to say at this point, I've had a license of some sort for at least 20 to 25 years.
Now the bad news is that I have not been active during all those years. My most resent break has been five years ago. This is when my wife and I decided to RV full time for a while. Had to get rid of most of my gear since we had to downsize to a really small RV. There was just no room for stuff. While we initially put a bunch of stuff in storage, that really only lasted a year and we downsized yet again. After three years on the road, we finally got a house again. The last two years have been trying to get the house in order and now I am finally able to get back to some sort of activities that include radio.
So that's the good news, I can finally start radio again. And that is what this blog will initially be about. My journey to restart doing Ham Radio again.