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Handheld APRS Receive
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Hello. I am part of a school amateur radio club that is launching a weather balloon soon, and we are using the MicroTrak 1000 to track it. We are able to receive the MicroTrak on our station's i-gate, but not our handhelds. We are using a couple of Anytone AT878UVII, and they can receive other APRS packets. However, they can't pick up the ones from the MicroTrak. Can anyone help, solve, or replicate this problem?
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开云体育The Anytone isn't the best APRS radio
around.? It is very selective as to what packets it can decode
and which packets are just ignored.?? Anytones are particularly
good at copying packets from other Anytone radios, but not so
much when attempting to decoding APRS packets from other
arbitrary APRS sources.
If you want to track your balloon
most reliably, try setting up Direwolf interfacing audio to
practicaly any radio and displaying the received packets with
some suitable APRS client application like APRSIS32.? You will
be amazed at the difference.?? And Direwolf works perfectly fine
on a PI and can even provide an SPP Bluetooth connection for the
APRS client application to use.
On 6/28/2023 9:11 AM,
veit_giles@... wrote:
Hello. I am part of a school amateur radio club that is launching a weather balloon soon, and we are using the MicroTrak 1000 to track it. We are able to receive the MicroTrak on our station's i-gate, but not our handhelds. We are using a couple of Anytone AT878UVII, and they can receive other APRS packets. However, they can't pick up the ones from the MicroTrak. Can anyone help, solve, or replicate this problem?
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I absolutely agree with everything Lynn said.? Especially about using a different radio and software type TNC (like Direwolf).
However, I know school projects can be limited on equipment and funding. So, there are a few settings to try on the MT1k to overcome "some" of the Anytone limitations. One of the radio limitations is the squelch turn around time. ? ?Sometimes, increasing AutoTX on the MT will 'improve' reception of packets. NOTE:? the wording.?? ? ? This tries to overcome only one of the radios limitations when it comes to decoding digital signals. ? ? I know of several people who have tried this, but only 1 or 2 that were successful. ? ? Worth a try, though.? Be interested in any results. ------- Robert Giuliano KB8RCO |
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Shoot! I remember Direwolf from back in the day along with APRSIS32.? Did APRSIS32 under emulation under Linux and it ran well.? I agree the Anytones aren't that great but if the digipeater is 1200 yards away, they get by. I have to admit I forgot how to use Direwolf. Currently using an early Mobilinkd unit (I forget which version) plugged into a UV-5b with Xastir on a Linux laptop as a base station. Shoot, it's an old dual processor laptop from ancient times that at least had Bluetooth and all the hardware has been running continuously for a few years.? Sometimes I check and if the salvaged laptop dies and I have to fire up a "new" used one but I've only had to do that once or twice.? For short power outages the batteries will continue to power the units for a short time.? Once the input and output levels are set in Xastir one is good to go.? Never have to touch the radio thereafter on 144.390. Oh I've used several Byonics products with success for the purposes I needed them for.? Tracking amateur rockets back in the day.? The non-licensed, purpose built 900Mhz stuff serves me well for sport flights now that aren't extreme but I have great memories of tracking rockets that spent a lot of time in "out of sight land" and didn't know where they landed but had a good APRS fix of the last known position.? Never lost a rocket with APRS tracking.? I was lucky I never had a rocket land in a lake.? I tracked another fliers APRS rocket on a mapping laptop and had to relay the news the rocket likely landed in a lake!? That flier got the fiberglass tubed rocket and motor hardware back and was reusable but the electronics where trashed after being in the water.? There were a few other Hams that flew rockets with APRS.? I enjoyed tracking their projects and they were impressed with my live tracking on a map Xastir setup.? There once was a flier who was trying to input the last known lat/long into his handheld Garmin mapping GPS and couldn't get the units right.? I was tracking the flight on my laptop and with another system wired into a mapping Garmin 60 CsX GPS unit. (Back in the day I used two systems for backup in case the laptop batteries ran out.)? My Garmin had the last known position fixed and when I saw him struggling, I handed him my 60CsX and told him to go here.? I set it up as the rocket last known position as a waypoint and he just had to follow the arrow.? Got his rocket back and was a very happy camper.? He had the right Ham radio Handi-talkie radio (and callsign) for APRS tracking and I told him what $19.95 cable he needed to directly interface his APRS radio to his Garmin 60 CsX.? He had a Garmin GPS too.? He really had fun tracking after that.? It still is a "killer" setup for APRS tracking amateur rockets to this day.? Get the flight monitored on a map!? When supersonic, the rocket disappears due to treaty restrictions of not reporting positions on consumer GPS's at supersonic speeds but at apogee and the GPS receiver with slowed down speed, starts decoding positions on descent to be transmitted to the ground station until out of range.? One gets positions until the rocket is 50 to 100 feet in the air as it's a distance away and that last known position is all that's need to recover the rocket.? Had a "blast" flying and tracking rockets with APRS and other Rf means. Nowadays, the simplest for me is Xastir on a Linux laptop as a stationary base station.? Been running that combo for years. Kurt KC9LDH
On Wednesday, June 28, 2023 at 08:22:30 AM CDT, Lynn Deffenbaugh <kj4erj@...> wrote:
The Anytone isn't the best APRS radio
around.? It is very selective as to what packets it can decode
and which packets are just ignored.?? Anytones are particularly
good at copying packets from other Anytone radios, but not so
much when attempting to decoding APRS packets from other
arbitrary APRS sources.
If you want to track your balloon
most reliably, try setting up Direwolf interfacing audio to
practicaly any radio and displaying the received packets with
some suitable APRS client application like APRSIS32.? You will
be amazed at the difference.?? And Direwolf works perfectly fine
on a PI and can even provide an SPP Bluetooth connection for the
APRS client application to use.
On 6/28/2023 9:11 AM,
veit_giles@... wrote:
Hello. I am part of a school amateur radio club that is launching
a weather balloon soon, and we are using the MicroTrak 1000 to
track it. We are able to receive the MicroTrak on our station's
i-gate, but not our handhelds. We are using a couple of Anytone
AT878UVII, and they can receive other APRS packets. However, they
can't pick up the ones from the MicroTrak. Can anyone help, solve,
or replicate this problem?
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We also have a second form of mobile receiving using a program called APRSdroid. It uses a Baofeng to receive the signal, and then it passes it to an android phone to be decoded. Again, it will read other packets aside from our MicroTrak1000. Is the MT1k encoding it's packets in some way that our mobile receivers can't read it?
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开云体育You can try listening to the MT1k
packets by ear and compare them to the other packets that are
decoded by the Anytones and/or APRSdroid on the phone.?? It may
be that the MT1k packets have a different "twist" which will
make them sound more treble or more bass to your ear.
There's an excellent article on
overdriving audio and pre/de-emphasis ("twist") at
Lynn (D) - KJ4ERJ - Author of APRSISCE
for Windows Mobile and Win32
PS.? How long do you have until the planned flight??? If it's soon, you might also want to read: But please don't take offense!?? It's
meant as a tongue-in-cheek about what happens way too often in the
APRS world.
On 6/28/2023 10:51 AM,
veit_giles@... wrote:
We also have a second form of mobile receiving using a program called APRSdroid. It uses a Baofeng to receive the signal, and then it passes it to an android phone to be decoded. Again, it will read other packets aside from our MicroTrak1000. Is the MT1k encoding it's packets in some way that our mobile receivers can't read it?
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Just a quick thought brought on by your project director telling me that he had not received the transmissions from the MT-1000 at all, even with an open squelch: You are tuning your AnyTone to 144.390 MHZ right, not 144.340 or some other alternative frequency? This could explain why your Gate received it but your Anytone does not.? 73, Allen AF6OF
On Wednesday, June 28, 2023 at 08:19:47 AM PDT, Lynn Deffenbaugh <kj4erj@...> wrote:
You can try listening to the MT1k
packets by ear and compare them to the other packets that are
decoded by the Anytones and/or APRSdroid on the phone.?? It may
be that the MT1k packets have a different "twist" which will
make them sound more treble or more bass to your ear.
There's an excellent article on
overdriving audio and pre/de-emphasis ("twist") at
Lynn (D) - KJ4ERJ - Author of APRSISCE
for Windows Mobile and Win32
PS.? How long do you have until the planned flight??? If it's soon, you might also want to read: But please don't take offense!?? It's
meant as a tongue-in-cheek about what happens way too often in the
APRS world.
On 6/28/2023 10:51 AM,
veit_giles@... wrote:
We also have a second form of mobile receiving using a program
called APRSdroid. It uses a Baofeng to receive the signal, and
then it passes it to an android phone to be decoded. Again, it
will read other packets aside from our MicroTrak1000. Is the MT1k
encoding it's packets in some way that our mobile receivers can't
read it?
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Sorry for the delay in response! This problem came up last minute and the launch was today. Even though we couldn't receive the packets in the field, we were still able to track it. It was in range of other i-gates, so we just used . Between the tracking, weather data collection, and even live video, there were a lot of new ideas put into this balloon. However, it went nearly flawlessly. Next time we might get the mobile APRS receiving set up on a laptop. Thank you?all for responding and helping us. KC3SRK - Giles Veit |
开云体育Is this the KC3SGV balloon that was launched today? It seem it was a pretty good day to launch! Hit lots of Igates from altitude!!
KB3KBR Greg. Sent from my Samsung Galaxy smartphone.
-------- Original message --------
From: Giles Veit <veit_giles@...>
Date: 6/29/23 18:47 (GMT-05:00)
Subject: Re: [TinyTrak] Handheld APRS Receive
Sorry for the delay in response! This problem came up last minute and the launch was today. Even though we couldn't receive the packets in the field, we were still able to track it. It was in range of other i-gates, so we just used
. Between the tracking, weather data collection, and even live video, there were a lot of new ideas put into this balloon. However, it went nearly flawlessly. Next time we might get the mobile APRS receiving set up on a laptop.
Thank you?all for responding and helping us.
KC3SRK - Giles Veit
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