APRS equipment

While many of us know about the TinyTrak family, I didn't realize there were a few other places with similar equipment.

One (the OpenTracker+) seems pretty similar to the TT, but has a built-in temperature and voltage sensor and supports sending some basic telemetry data as well.

It might be interesting if someone who can program well (which rules me out) could hack the firmware to send parameters that would be more interesting to pilots. I'm not sure what you'd send - possibly OAT, AOA data, airspeed?

Anyways, if anyone finds any interesting equipment that could be used for APRS, let everyone know.

Khelmar said:

While many of us know about the TinyTrak family, I didn't realize there were a few other places with similar equipment.

One (the OpenTracker+) seems pretty similar to the TT, but has a built-in temperature and voltage sensor and supports sending some basic telemetry data as well.

It might be interesting if someone who can program well (which rules me out) could hack the firmware to send parameters that would be more interesting to pilots. I'm not sure what you'd send - possibly OAT, AOA data, airspeed?

Anyways, if anyone finds any interesting equipment that could be used for APRS, let everyone know.

Click to expand...

I poke around on a couple of tracker user groups and the Open Tracker is well regarded. It seems to be very configurable since the software is open source.

The appeal of the Micro-Trak line is the way it will pretty much plug-n-play with APRS but the Open Tracker should be appealing to the hard-core geek.

Just by looking at it, I don't think it includes the transmitter IC so you have to interface with an external transmitter. I agree, the open source code for the firmware is attractive though.

-erik

CI-122 VHF COM ANTENNA

Can the MT8000FA use a Comant antenna such as the CI-122 VHF COM ANTENNA? I have an auxillary already installed on my airplane's belly and would love to use it for APRS.

OpenTracker

The OT2 from Argent is a great product! The device is roughly comparable to the Byonics TinyTrak 4, in that they can both send and receive APRS data, including telemetry. Firmware for the OT2 is more mature that the firmware for the newer TT4, but both devices are still experimental. Unlike the TT3, the TinyTrak 4 and the OT2 will decode received data, allowing you to display positions of other APRS stations on your GPS receiver, since they can be uploaded as waypoints. You can also use either with a computer loaded with APRS software. The OT2 software is open source, but the overwhelming majority of users do not write new base level code to take advantage of this. The OT2 is not an integrated Controller/Transceiver, but they have this in the works.

There are a number of other TT3/TT4 knock-offs out there as well.

The primary difference between an OT2 and a TT4, is that the OT2 uses a modem chip on the receive end. This limits the device to only being able to decode 1200 Baud data, and can never be changed.

The TT4 uses software decoding of received signals, and with the right firmware, it can decode pretty much anything that can be transmitted over the air, including any baud rate, touch tones, various digital avionics communications modes, and 406 ELT/EPIRB data.

As for Telemetry, data is data, and both can have mulitiple channels of telemetry data. Monitoring your ships' systems requires converting your monitored parameters to 0-5 volt values or other useful data streams.

Our TT4 transceiver should be out in August. It uses a 1/2 Watt transceiver operating on 144.390 (sorry Europe!). The prototype is smaller than a 3 X 5card. You can use pretty much any GPS that will accept NMEA data input for a display.

Of more interest, is that the unit will be able to accept a mini-ps/2 keyboard and an external LCD display. This will provide a method by which you can send APRS E-Mail and communicate in other ways. My hope is that we will be able to change most operating parameters through the keyboard.

Allen
VHS