A week with DPRS

Well, it's been one week so far, and I've really made some tracks. It's actually quite impressive when you look at it graphically. One thing that strikes me when I see these plots of my Digital Position Reports is that every red dot represents a transmission in which I was received by a Dstar repeater, probably 95% have been the AK4EG B port, 444.8875, I have also been heard by the AK4EG C port, and the KI4WXS C port a few times. NC is blessed with some outstanding Dstar repeater systems, we have continuous Dstar coverage for almost the full length of I-85 through our state, in most places the corridor is covered by multiple systems. Here is a compilation of all of my reports for the past 7 days:

It is actually a little funny It looks as if I've been obsessively continuously transmitting in some areas, but really those dots all lined up are an accumulation that has happened over the past week of commuting and running errands, basically normal QSO's that I've been having on a daily basis anyway, but have just not been recorded until now.

Another thing that I've recently realized is that listening to the DV mode will spoil you. After having the ID-880 for a week in the car and using Dstar systems heavily I have become very accustomed to hearing clear clean audio coming from my radio. We switched around a bit this morning to some FM repeaters and it's just lost it's luster. I mean, I'm telling you the truth, try it! If you give Digital Voice a real chance you'll become attached to it as well, and you won't want to go back!

Here are my DPRS tracks from the first two days of having the GPS receiver mated with my ID-880. It works pretty well, and it's been lots of fun. What you see here are all hits heard by the AK4EG B port, that's UHF, repeater(444.8875). You can see that the repeater has a fairly large footprint. You can kinda build a bit of a coverage map for a repeater by looking at the repeater at www.aprs.fi and looking at all the reports gated through that entity, unfortunately the aprs.fi site only keeps one month at a time.

Here is a screen shot of the gated reports so far from 8/10:

Most of the Dstar radios do have DPRS (Digital Position reporting system) capabilities. It is fairly inexpensive to get yourself a GPS reciever and build an interface for the radio, can be done for under $100. It's been a lot of fun to play with so far, and I'm looking forward to seeing more of the Data from my commuting next week! You should try it too!

73

AJ4TW

Got the tracker up and running in the car. You can see my location and tracks by going to www.aprs.fi and searching for my call sign, AJ4TW.

The ID-880 came in from Gigaparts yesterday just in time for the weekend, they sent me a new replacement radio. Good job Gigaparts!

See Ya!

73

Got word back today from Gigaparts, they received the radio today and are shipping the replacement radio out to me right away. I am very satisfied with their prompt attention and good service. It is nice to see that some businesses still care about their customers, it seems more and more rare these days that a retail type business knows the proper way to treat their customers. Thanks to Brandon and the rest of the guys at Gigaparts! Looking forward to seeing that ID-880 back in it's proper place on my dashboard!

Catch ya later!

73

AJ4TW

Well, we got the interface box made to run the GPS on the ID-880. Don WD4CWE made the connections and put it all together, I just showed up with the parts and the plan. It works! I had to send my 880 back because there was a problem with the UHF finals, so I won't have it back until next week. Thanks to the guys a Gigaparts for working with me on that one, I hope to get it back really quick!

Anyway, here are some pictures from building the interface box, what it does is insert the 5v power for the GPS and allow the GPS to talk to the Icom programming cable:

Here you can see all of the parts that I got together to get the thing made total cost of $8.50 or so at radio shack.

This is the 5v voltage regulator transistor.

Here are some final assembly internal photos.

Feel free to contact me if you have any questions about Connecting your ID-880 to a GPS reciever, I'll be happy to try and help out if I can!

Well, for reasons beyond my control I'm dropping out of the MDC QSO party. I think I'll turn my efforts towards building the interface for my DPRS set up for the 880. At least that way I can get something done, and my GPS receiver will be ready to go.

I'm pretty bummed about missing the QSO party, but I guess there is always next year. . .

Last night my ID-880 came in, WD4CWE and I installed it in the car in the heat and humidity, we hooked the computer up to it and programmed it with all the local repeaters. It's ready for action, there are still a few things that need to be done to complete the installation, but it is ready for this morning's commute. So far I think that is a great radio, it is really cool. Nice compact presence on the dash, but with a large enough display that I can easily read callsigns and messages that scroll across the screen.

I'm going to try and get the GPS running on it so that I can activate the DPRS functions of the radio and have live GPS tracking.

Catch ya on the radio!

73

It's been a month already! This is August and the Maryland/DC QSO party is coming up Aug 14th, I'm planning on participating again this year, last year was lots of fun and I had a little success as well. Last year of course I was still KJ4BEE.

Also I ordered an Icom ID-880 for the car that should be here this week, I can't wait to have a real Dstar mobile rig, I've been playing with Dstar for over a year now and only using my IC-91AD which is a small hand-held radio. I can not complain at all about the 91, that radio has performed flawlessly that little radio is a work-horse, very tough little rig. But, it was time for something more substantial in the car with DV. I'm pretty excited as this is the first brand new rig that I have ever bought so it'll be pretty cool!

Maybe I'll get a chance to catch you on the air through one of the D-Star repeaters from my new little mobile rig!

73