Bought my bits...

OK APRS guys... I bought most of my stuff, and I want to use it on my 3 week cross-country planned for July in my Tiger.

Since it's going in a certified plane, I'm reluctant to do any permanent mounting, and the Tiger wing tip, while very similar to the original RV ones, has some moving control parts in it - the aileron counterweights.

So the plan at the moment is for a small plastic box on the rear seat with a Micro-Trak 300 (8 watt ones sold out) a Micro-Amp to get the 300 mW to 8 W, and a Micro-Volt 12 power supply module. A Byonics GPS-2 reciver mounted on the glare shield (velcro) and powered by 12 volts from the cigarette lighter socket - I guess folks actually smoked in Grummans in the 70's..., and finally, the 1/8 oz. whip antenna from Byonics that I will tape onto the rear side window.

I have a few questions....

1. Anyone know if the GPS cable can take an extender (probably 3 ft long) to get the connection to the back seat?

2. Any easy sources to get a 3 ft. SMA to SMA cable to connect the tracker output to the antenna?

3. Any easy sources for a very short (or zero length adapter) SMA-SMA cable to connect the Tiny-Trak to the Amplifier?

...any other comments on these plans would also be welcome...

gil A - KE6HAP - waiting to get tracked...

PS I had to build the Micro Amp from a kit... it was relatively easy (less than 30 minutes), but you need a very fine tip on your soldering iron, and I do have good eyesight close-up...

There are ordinarily no problems adding an extension to your GPS cable. Try not to route it in parallel to your RF cables. I would suggest remote mounting the Micro-Amp, and keep the antenna on,or as close to, the amplifier output as possible. Obviously, you will need to run a power , trigger, and RF cable to remote mount the amp. Mouser Electronics and Digikey can probably supply a Double-Male SMA connector if you need one. SMA cables are hard to come by pre-fabricated. I can probably dig up a couple of SMA males and some RG-174 U if you need them.

The single channel Micro-Trak's (the 300 and 8000) are all going the way of the dinosaurs. They will be replaced by the Micro-Trak 8000 when the remaining stock is sold out. ( Byonics is sold out of the 8 Watt Micro-Trak 8000, and has a small number of MT-300 assembled units available) There will be a single channel Transceiver Micro-Trak based on the TT4 controller.

Allen
VHS

Output cable length...

VHS said:

There are ordinarily no problems adding an extension to your GPS cable. Try not to route it in parallel to your RF cables. I would suggest remote mounting the Micro-Amp, and keep the antenna on,or as close to, the amplifier output as possible. Obviously, you will need to run a power , trigger, and RF cable to remote mount the amp. Mouser Electronics and Digikey can probably supply a Double-Male SMA connector if you need one. SMA cables are hard to come by pre-fabricated. I can probably dig up a couple of SMA males and some RG-174 U if you need them.

The single channel Micro-Trak's (the 300 and 8000) are all going the way of the dinosaurs. They will be replaced by the Micro-Trak 8000 when the remaining stock is sold out. ( Byonics is sold out of the 8 Watt Micro-Trak 8000, and has a small number of MT-300 assembled units available) There will be a single channel Transceiver Micro-Trak based on the TT4 controller.

Allen
VHS

Click to expand...

Hi Allen... thanks for the quick reply.

I'll make a short extension to the gps cable to get the works to the rear seat.

The extension to the antenna would need to be about 2 ft.
I could place the Micro-Amp in this lead nearer the antenna, but then the Micro-Amp would be sort of hanging in space with no real support -and the antenna itself is only taped to the rer plexiglas.

Would a 2 ft. length of RG-174 really be that much loss if I'm at the 8 watt output level?

I'll check the one and only electronics supply place in Tucson (other side of town, unfortuneately) for the SMA cable connectors.... they sound too exotic to be stocked at Radio Shack...

gil A KE6HAP - getting there

az_gila said:

I'll check the one and only electronics supply place in Tucson (other side of town, unfortuneately) for the SMA cable connectors.... they sound too exotic to be stocked at Radio Shack...

gil A KE6HAP - getting there

Click to expand...

Gil, I found SMA connectors for RG-58 in one of three Radio Snacks I checked in my area. There is a space in their RF parts bin for the connectors, but apparently not all stores keep them.

Whoa, check this out:

http://tinyurl.com/3f5yp3

And this:

http://tinyurl.com/48tmsp

According to their site, the SMA's are in stock at nine Tucson area stores.

Went driving

Sam Buchanan said:

Gil, I found SMA connectors for RG-58 in one of three Radio Snacks I checked in my area. There is a space in their RF parts bin for the connectors, but apparently not all stores keep them.

Whoa, check this out:

http://tinyurl.com/3f5yp3

And this:

http://tinyurl.com/48tmsp

According to their site, the SMA's are in stock at nine Tucson area stores.

Click to expand...

Hey Sam... I'm impressed and amazed at Radio Shack... I really thought it would be too exotic for them, and I didn't even bother to check...

I drove across town when it got too hot to work (98 F) and got some, along with RG-174 cable, at our electronics store.

The Radio Shack 3 miles away would have been a lot easier....

Now to do some hook-ups and put it in a box.

gil A

Update

I built my little box of parts and an auto power plug (with a green LED added) wired for input. I have it wired with no GPS extension cable and a 4 ft or so RG-174 cable to the antenna.

Driving proved to be slightly sucessful with an antenna taped to the window of my old Chevy Tracker.

This mornings trip to downtown Tucson showed 6 hits in a 30 minute drive - including showing a crossing at Tangerine Drive at 40 kts, pretty close to the 45 mph speed limit....

http://aprs.fi/?call=N12GA&dt=1213660800&mt=m&z=11&timerange=3600

The return trip showed no hits, but I think the antenna was on the opposite side of the car from the receiving base station.

This was all on the 300 mW MicroTrak. I do not seem to have any output from my MicroAmp and need to investigate further. I am hoping I did not damage it when I inadvertantly ran it with power and a pulsed enable, but no input or output co-ax....

The tests seem good enough to try it in my Tiger - even at 300 mW, but I'll wait until we slow down on the current hot spell - 109 F in Tucson today.

gil A