New Byonics MT-RTG coming soon- I hope!

I have been working on frequency agile version of our MT-RTG transmitter. It will look and perform identically to our standard RTG, but each of the two configuration channels can use any frequency in the two meter ham band. I am not sure how this would generally help the RV people, most of whom I assume are in North America, but I am hoping that using it on other frequencies will become popular for special activities ( air shows, races, etc) where you might want to send data at a faster rate without clogging up ( and really upsetting the APRS "police") the National APRS channel. It looks like this one will have to be used with a good antenna: No rubber ducks unless the power is turned way down. IF all goes according to plan, the first units will be out next month, and will be comparably priced to the standard MT-RTG. The cool thing for the techies out there is that the chip will be able to be reprogrammed with new firmware as available.

73,

Allen
VHS

Innovation!

We hear about the cool new stuff here first on VAF!

Alan, thanks for all your help with APRS.

VHS said:

It looks like this one will have to be used with a good antenna: No rubber ducks unless the power is turned way down.

Allen
VHS

Click to expand...

Sounds like a worthy addition to the RTG line, Allen. Does this mean we need to stay with something like a tuned 1/4 wave whip for this tracker?. I assume SWR is more critical due to the wider frequency capability of the device.

New RTG

Sam,

I am trying now to lock down the cause of the problems we have when operating bad antennas ( Although put like that,I guess its kind of self-explanatory...) We have a new PIC with double the memory, and a new PLL exciter, and since I can't make the problem go away, I am not 100% sure how I can get around it, but I have more ideas to try.

One thing we will be implementing in the new chip is being able to change configuration based on altitude. You might for instance want to turn of your digipath entirely when you are at 6000 feet ( depending on where you live naturally) or automatically change from being a Car below 500 feet and an airplane above 500 feet, or anything else you could dream up....swapping Smart Beaconing and timing settings, etc. The new design will also have voltage telemetry.

We hope to be able to produce a backwards compatible PIC version for current RTG and TT3 users too, since this is something that might be of interest.

Allen

Allen,

Just a thought...with the ability to transmit on multiple frequencies, I could see a benefit to automatic ping pong between the main APRS freq and a secondary one. I am sure that there is a penalty time for PLL locking, but if for some reason the secondary frequency is unable to pick up beacons, at least 144.39 would get some. Do you have any plans to support such a mode?

This would allow one to setup their own iGate on secondary frequency and hit it quite often, while being sure that when we venture further from home to still have logging at a lesser but more responsible rate.

jmjula said:

Allen,

Just a thought...with the ability to transmit on multiple frequencies, I could see a benefit to automatic ping pong between the main APRS freq and a secondary one. I am sure that there is a penalty time for PLL locking, but if for some reason the secondary frequency is unable to pick up beacons, at least 144.39 would get some. Do you have any plans to support such a mode?

This would allow one to setup their own iGate on secondary frequency and hit it quite often, while being sure that when we venture further from home to still have logging at a lesser but more responsible rate.

Click to expand...

It should be doable: I will pass it on to Byon, who actually writes the code.

Allen

Update on the MT-RTG FA

Just when I thought we a were getting close to releasing the frequency agile MT-RTG, Byon decided to add code to support temperature and voltage reporting. New board design, new code, but other than that, its looking good. We discussed the alternating frequencies issue, and this first version will probably have a version of that capability, probably based on swapping between one of two configurations automatically.

73,

Allen
VHS/Byonics

Micro-Trak RTG Frequency agile version

Well, Byonics is starting to actually ship out our new transmitter, the MT-RTG FA. if anyone out there has input on how it works for you, or features you want to see, don't hesitate to let me know.

Allen
VHS

yippie

I received mine today in the mail !

VHS said:

Well, Byonics is starting to actually ship out our new transmitter, the MT-RTG FA. if anyone out there has input on how it works for you, or features you want to see, don't hesitate to let me know.

Allen
VHS

Click to expand...

I dont have APRS yet in my RV and Im not up on all the latest, but one thing I think would be useful to many people is the ability to locate the position of a buddy's plane from your own plane while both are flying. Do you see any way this might be achieved?

Just dreaming again...

erich

aprs.fi formatted for iPhone and Android

I wascjust reading the blog for aprs.fi and the author has written detection code to recognize when the browser is from an iPhone or Android device and formats a very usable smaller version of the website.

Also, r those who wish to let family and friends follow your travels, you can creat a simple to share URL: http://aprs.fi/callsign

erich weaver said:

I dont have APRS yet in my RV and Im not up on all the latest, but one thing I think would be useful to many people is the ability to locate the position of a buddy's plane from your own plane while both are flying. Do you see any way this might be achieved?

Just dreaming again...

erich

Click to expand...

Calling Pete Howell...

Erich, this thread will whet your appetite!

Cheers,
Bob

If you want to simplify the setup a bit, you can get an Alinco DR-135 radio and Scott makes an Opentracker that goes inside the case. The Nuvi is getting a little harder to find ( Garmin disco'd them) and the other Nuvis only "kinda-sorta" work or don't work at all with the Argent data converter.

The Kenwood D710 and Avmap GPS is the really awesome way to do tracking and messaging, but its quite a bit more expensive. We dropped our MT-TT4 and will release a replacement when we have a unit that is frequency agile, affordable, powerful, and plug and play; none of these are particularly easy to accomplish!

For those with no fear of software and a limited budget, any two meter transceiver, old laptop, and a copy of AGWPE can get you on the air with free or nearly free software, and only minimal brain pain.

73,

Allen
VHS

MT-RTG single channel unit to be discontinued

Just a heads-up to my favorite group of customers: After our remaining stock and parts sets for the single channel RTG are gone, we will be discontinuing that model (MT-RTG NA) and only selling the frequency-agile version, (MT-RTG FA) which costs $30.00 more than the single channel unit. We also plan on developing an upgrade chip for those people who already have the single channel RTG, that uses the more powerful processor in our new units. This will allow the user to upload new versions of the firmware to the PIC as different and new features become available.

Allen
VHS

VHS said:

Just a heads-up to my favorite group of customers: After our remaining stock and parts sets for the single channel RTG are gone, we will be discontinuing that model (MT-RTG NA) and only selling the frequency-agile version, (MT-RTG FA) which costs $30.00 more than the single channel unit. We also plan on developing an upgrade chip for those people who already have the single channel RTG, that uses the more powerful processor in our new units. This will allow the user to upload new versions of the firmware to the PIC as different and new features become available.

Allen
VHS

Click to expand...

Be sure and let us know when the upgrade is ready. I would like to upgrade my RTG.