The KEØVH Hamshack For October 2013
By Jack Roland, CBRE, AMD and CBNT
KLove /Air 1 EMF Colorado Engineering.
Another reminder: we have begun another engineering hamnet for all interested Amateurs. It is the EMF/Klove/Air1 IRLP Echolink Nationwide Ham net, and it will be on Monday Evenings at 7pm Mountain time, 9pm Eastern. It will take place in just the same manner as the SBE net I run once a month now. It is open for ANYONE who is interested in participating, engineer or not. It will be on the SBE IRLP Reflector 9615, Echolink *SBE* or node 96150. Details on how to join are the same as for the SBE net, details are at www.qsl.net/ke0vh/sbehamnet. IF you want to join in locally in Denver, we will be on the 449.626 WØKU repeater.
As you may have read in the past here, I have an APRS (APRS: Automatic Packet Reporting System) beacon in the work truck that will show where I am just about anytime. This is really cool because my wife or anyone can see where I am at anytime during the workday. This is also a great safety factor and a way for someone to find me if I become incapacitated or if I need assistance. You can also mouse over the little red dots in the path and see the path of the signal to an I Gate, such as the black diamond with the “I” in it near Craig CO, as in the upper left of the picture below.
This is a view, showing as of this writing the “past seven days” of travel which you can set the information on the tracking site “APRS.fi” to do. Very useful and informative. In this view you can see my travels the week of 09/23-27. To Buckhorn Mountain west of Fort Collins, to Sunlight peak SW of Glenwood Springs, and to Steamboat Springs. This map zooms in of course on the site and you can look at things more in detail.
This is the zoom in on the path up to Sunlight Peak near Glenwood Springs.
And you can use the Satellite view feature, and zoom in on where I am or was. The Satellite views and maps are a function of Google maps.
You can get into this for only the price of the tracker, a GPS that will send out NMEA data to the tracker unit, and a 2 meter radio on 144.390 mHz. I use the “Opentracker” made Argent data: http://www.argentdata.com/products/otplus.html and another popular unit is the Tiny Tracker, you can see those at http://www.byonics.com/tinytrak/. The TinyTrak has a companion GPS/Antenna combination for only 99$ so it can be VERY easy to get started.
One area of the state that doesn’t have great APRS coverage is along the NE Colorado I-76 corridor from about Ft. Morgan to the Nebraska state line. I have stations in Sterling and near Akron on the eastern plains, so it is my goal to put an APRS digipeater out in those area’s to provide some coverage. A digipeater takes the APRS data from a station mobile or otherwise and “repeats” it to an area which has an IGate. The IGate then takes the data and puts it on the internet to various APRS sites, such as the afformentioned APRS.fi. I will write more on this as time progresses, and I hope to have a digipeater working near Akron or Sterling soon.
KEØVH Opentracker unit.
For the digipeater I will be using a Kantronics KPC3+ TNC and a mobile 2 meter rig, I will report more on this as the project progresses. In the meantime, you can go to APRS.fi, put in my KE0VH-2 designator in the search “Track callsign” box, and see how it works.
(QSL)
I am proud of this one, been waiting for a QSL from the Falklands, or a chance to work the islands for a long time. This was received last month after working Bob in March on 15 meters. GET ON HF! FUN!!!!
As always don’t forget the SBE IRLP (and Echolink) Hamnet, the first Saturday of the month. Details on how to join are at http://www.qsl.net/ke0vh/sbehamnet. I hope you will be able to join us and share your engineering and ham exploits!
73’, God be with you, & see you next time! KEØVH