APRS in Brazil/PI TNC-X

[K7MT]

Howdy Gang - I am pretty much recovered from a world wind vacation of 30 days that included Brazil.

APRS in Brazil has RF activity in Sao Paulo and Rio de Janerio. When I got to Fortaleza I listened for two days on their APRS Frequency and did not pick up a single station. After meeting with local ham folks, I discovered that everyone was on the internet or with APRS droid on their cell phones. So, I only beaconed my position via the internet while on vacation as there was no RF APRS Igate.

KC7MRQ Corey has been using the small Raspberry PI computer with a new TNC-X especially designed for the PI. He is really satisfied with the equipments reliability and the Linux operating system.

http://tnc-x.com/TNCPi.htm

If anyone is interested in the Raspberry PI Computer with APRS using the TNC-X interface the link above will get you the information. Pretty cool idea from the folks at TNC-X.

I just got a TNC-X designed to be used APRS Droid on you smart phone. The TNC-X has a blue tooth interface to talk to your smart phone with the APRS Droid software. There is only one cable from your handheld radio to the TNC-X then Blue Tooth to the smartphone. Another cool idea. I am trying to catch up with some of this new technology but I am still a bit behind the times so to say.

http://www.mobilinkd.com/

I am just finishing up a article for submission to ARRL to be considered for publication about the APRS project on Eagle Head repeater site on the Gallatin National Forest. All the paper work with the Forest Service is complete and the APRS is written into their communications plan as reported by Kevin Ames AA7YQ. He gave me the go ahead to get input from three agencies that monitor the power system as beaconed by APRS. Kevin and I will hike up to Ealge Head this summer and make the final adjustments to the Station. I think I will title it "Spirit of Cooperation".

Finally, G8BPQ now has a Linux version of BPQ32 that also allows more than one TNC-X to be hooked up. So, you can setup a complete BPQ32 Node with Mail, Chat, and internet linking and also do APRS on a Raspberry PI computer with two TNC-X's. The package would be about the size of three smart phones stacked on top of each other and use less than a half an amp of power. This makes it an ideal solar power station and I for one am going to make this a project this next winter.

Cheers all.

Bill K7MT
http://www.k7mt.com

[N7YO]

Welcome back home Bill, glad you had a good time. Lately I have been experimenting with the RaspberryPi, that all started when I decided to put our local IRLP node on the pi. That project went really well and has been operational for quite some time with no glitches what so ever. I have 3 extra pi's lying around that are looking for worthy projects, and the APRS/winlink/etc would be fun to play with. When I get some free time I might just do that!