APRS

The Working Configuration

I’ve gotten APRS working with my current gear. I’m running my UV-K5 running egzumer 0.22.0 and VOX enabled. I set the radio volume pretty high, about 75%, and connected the BTech APRS cable and a USB-C 3.5mm audio adapter to my Pixel 6 Pro for an audio connection. The volume on the phone was set to nearly 100% volume. I ran APRSDroid in AFSK mode on the phone.

I watched for my position to show up on the map on https://aprs.fi/.

The Stuff That Didn’t Work

With nunu firmware, I needed to key it manually, but it worked. VOX didn’t work in the nunu 0.20.5, so I switch back to egzumer for working VOX.

Next Steps

I’ll next try to find an old phone to run the APRSDroid and try to use the Explorer QRZ-1, so I can dedicate some hardware to this project.

985 Workbench Net - 2024-03-25

I failed to check-in do to RF issues, but my summary is still good.

My Week in Amateur Radio

  • Antenna movement
    • Trying my dipole antennas in new places
      • hanging dipole in back yard
      • still getting debilitating interference over 985
      • 21 and k3ir coming in pretty good
    • Restrung the EFRW antenna for HF
      • a little higher, straighter in the tree
    • It’s great fun to throw wires and strings in trees
  • Overload on UV-K5 with better antennas
    • UV-K5 & UV-K6 for comparison - not broken
    • Balance antenna location good enough but not too good
    • Going to try a bandstop filter, but not sure about transmitting through it
    • Love the firmware options on Quansheng radios, but do I need a better radio?
    • It kills me that I’m so marginal for accessing my favorite repeaters.
  • Modifying params database on xiegu x6100
    • Now shows me accurate bands and privileges, so i won’t accidentally wander beyond my privileges.
    • Modified the source code and rebuilt the database from my source
  • I picked up an Evolve 3 laptop that runs on 12v
    • Getting linux installed on it
  • Still learning CW
    • 20wpm
    • It’s so difficult to stay focused copying at 20wpm even for 1 minute