{"id":2929,"date":"2012-09-12T18:08:34","date_gmt":"2012-09-12T23:08:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/w0ep.us\/OM\/?p=2929"},"modified":"2012-09-12T18:10:55","modified_gmt":"2012-09-12T23:10:55","slug":"more-aprs-propagation-watcher","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/w0ep.us\/OM\/?p=2929","title":{"rendered":"More APRS propagation watcher"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>[Today&#8217;s run: Watson road\u00a0 3.5 miles]<\/p>\n<p>If you recall, I had been using an old laptop as my ham-radio computer.\u00a0 I have a version of Linux running on it.\u00a0 It works ok.<\/p>\n<p>I started to get back into APRS with it.\u00a0 At one time I ran an IGate and Digipeater, while we lived in Estes Park.\u00a0 But not so much interest in that around here so I had not been into it.<\/p>\n<p>But I was getting into 2 meter CW\/SSB.\u00a0 And I thought that maybe I could use APRS to alert me when there are band openings.\u00a0 I hooked up a 2 meter radio to the laptop using the internal soundcard and got a bit of that running.\u00a0 But it didn&#8217;t work very well.\u00a0\u00a0 One problem was the soundcard.\u00a0 Another problem was a lack of APRS traffic with which to test the thing.<\/p>\n<p>Two (actually three) interesting developments:<\/p>\n<p>1 &#8211; I bought an external USB soundcard thingy.\u00a0 It seems to work ok.\u00a0 I&#8217;m not completely 100% sure it is better than the internal soundcard, but I think it almost has to be.<\/p>\n<p>2 &#8211; A guy moved into the area from up north somewhere and he is into APRS.\u00a0 He set up a digipeater that is within range of my place.\u00a0 So I now have regular signals coming in<\/p>\n<p>3 &#8211; The software TNC I was using\u00a0 (soundmodem) is so-so.\u00a0 A guy did a better implementation in Java and there was a write-up about it in the QEX magazine.\u00a0 I got the software and now have it running.\u00a0 It appears to be working ok.<\/p>\n<p>I still have a bit of an interference problem between the APRS receiver and my internet system.\u00a0 If I unplug the wifi router the APRS system gets better.\u00a0 I&#8217;m not sure what I want to do about that, if anything.<\/p>\n<p>But I feel more excited about the project.\u00a0 Maybe I can work some more on my script to get the email notification stuff going.<\/p>\n<p>Here&#8217;s a picture for today, another one from the Iowa State Fair.\u00a0 One of the days we were there they had restored tractors lined up on the grand concourse.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/w0ep.us\/OM\/?attachment_id=2932\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-2932\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-2932\" title=\"Massey Harris 30\" src=\"http:\/\/w0ep.us\/OM\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/09\/IMG00648-20120815-1011-700x525.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"700\" height=\"525\" srcset=\"http:\/\/w0ep.us\/OM\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/09\/IMG00648-20120815-1011-700x525.jpg 700w, http:\/\/w0ep.us\/OM\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/09\/IMG00648-20120815-1011.jpg 1024w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 700px) 100vw, 700px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>[Today&#8217;s run: Watson road\u00a0 3.5 miles] If you recall, I had been using an old laptop as my ham-radio computer.\u00a0 I have a version of Linux running on it.\u00a0 It works ok. I started to get back into APRS with it.\u00a0 At one time I ran an IGate and Digipeater, while we lived in Estes [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2929","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ham-radio","category-operating"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/w0ep.us\/OM\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2929","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/w0ep.us\/OM\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/w0ep.us\/OM\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/w0ep.us\/OM\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/w0ep.us\/OM\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2929"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/w0ep.us\/OM\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2929\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2931,"href":"http:\/\/w0ep.us\/OM\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2929\/revisions\/2931"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/w0ep.us\/OM\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2929"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/w0ep.us\/OM\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2929"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/w0ep.us\/OM\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2929"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}