asutherland
VA7 HDT
I took the condensed ham course a couple years ago and got my call sign: VA7 HDT basic with honours. The majority of what I've been using it for so far has been communication in the back country and on longer adventure trips with friends/family. I have a couple handhelds and a mobile Kenwood 65watt vehicle mount in the cruiser.
I recently purchased another 65 watt kenwood that will be a dedicated aprs radio using Byonics aprs equipment: Byonics - TinyTrak4 GPS Position Encoder I have the TinyTrak 4 which does 2-way communication via the kenwood and a bluetooth link to my smart phone running APRSDroid Android app: APRSdroid - APRS for Android. This allows me to do realtime tracking of the cruiser on Google Maps APRS as well as receive other aprs objects on my smart phone (I can see location and operating frequencies of nearby repeaters, for example, or other aprs equipped vehicles).
In addition to GPS coordinates, speed, heading, local temp, and a few other details that the APRS equipment will transmit over VHF, the APRSDroid app allows you to send/receive APRS short messages (one ham user to another) via VHF... and then in addition there's a service online run from a ham user in the states: APRS/SMS Gateway that acts as a gateway between APRS messaging and actual SMS (texts) to regular phones.
This means I can send and receive text messages from my phone (using APRSDroid) to/from actual cell phones. All without any cell service at all (just need VHF reception to any APRS repeater in the area). The coverage for APRS is much better than cell coverage, at least in BC.
This youtube video is an example of sending/receiving, but done via my handheld and a tablet (via an AFSK cable I made) The setup in the cruiser is much better as it's a proper radio (65 watt) and linked to my phone via bluetooth and not AFSK.
I recently purchased another 65 watt kenwood that will be a dedicated aprs radio using Byonics aprs equipment: Byonics - TinyTrak4 GPS Position Encoder I have the TinyTrak 4 which does 2-way communication via the kenwood and a bluetooth link to my smart phone running APRSDroid Android app: APRSdroid - APRS for Android. This allows me to do realtime tracking of the cruiser on Google Maps APRS as well as receive other aprs objects on my smart phone (I can see location and operating frequencies of nearby repeaters, for example, or other aprs equipped vehicles).
In addition to GPS coordinates, speed, heading, local temp, and a few other details that the APRS equipment will transmit over VHF, the APRSDroid app allows you to send/receive APRS short messages (one ham user to another) via VHF... and then in addition there's a service online run from a ham user in the states: APRS/SMS Gateway that acts as a gateway between APRS messaging and actual SMS (texts) to regular phones.
This means I can send and receive text messages from my phone (using APRSDroid) to/from actual cell phones. All without any cell service at all (just need VHF reception to any APRS repeater in the area). The coverage for APRS is much better than cell coverage, at least in BC.
This youtube video is an example of sending/receiving, but done via my handheld and a tablet (via an AFSK cable I made) The setup in the cruiser is much better as it's a proper radio (65 watt) and linked to my phone via bluetooth and not AFSK.
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