What I brought home from Hamvention

Hamvention

HARA

The Dayton Hamvention is this weekend and I will be there attending forums, buying ham radio necessities, receiving the Hamvention's Special Achievement Award and staffing the TAPR booths (451-454) in the Ball Arena of the HARA complex.

During my commute to and from and around Dayton, I will be running OpenAPRS from my iPhone, so watch for me on your APRS maps.

At Hamvention 2014

The 2014 installment of the Hamvention was a memorable one.

I have been attending Hamvention regularly since 1978 and this year, we had some of the worst weather I have ever seen at Hamvention... even worse than when the event was held a month earlier when the potential for lousy weather was higher.

It rained, sleeted and hailed on Thursday, Friday and Saturday. Morning temps during those days started in the high 30's and did not get much above 50. I knew precipitation was in the forecast, but I did not expect it to be so cold and I did not dress appropriately. Luckily, I had a hoody to keep me warm when needed.

My family likes to watch my progress to and from Dayton via APRS, but I do not have a ham radio installed in my vehicle, so APRS was not an option. However, I do have an iPhone and there are some APRS apps for it. So I bought an app called OpenAPRS and it filled the bill as can be seen by my tracks as displayed on aprs.fi  above.

As I wrote in my previous blog post, "I always staff the TAPR booths on Hamvention Fridays and Saturdays, so if you make it to Hamvention this year, stop by... and say “Hi.” Well, at least one of you did just that: Dave = WA1OUI, who has been one of my most loyal readers and is also a long-time friend going back to the FM repeater wars of the 1970s. Dave was working in one of the ARRL booths just up the aisle and I returned the favor and stopped by his booth!

I ran into a lot of other old friends during the weekend --- not sure if they read this blog or not. Some showed up at the TAPR booth and some I bumped into on the convention floor; folks like Al = N8DHF, Bob = WB4APR, Craig = K1QX, Dave = K1ZZ, Guy = KC5GOI, Harold = WJ1B, Joe = K0NEB, Rich = W2VU, Steve = N8GNJ, Tom = K3IO and many others.

The TAPR booth was very busy all weekend, busier than its been at recent Hamventions probably because we had a lot to show this year. John = N8UR was showing his high precision timing projects, Jeremy = NH6Z and Scotty = WA2DFI were demonstrating SDR, Mike = No-Call-Yet had his HackRF attracting a lot of attention, Chris = KD2BMH was with his WhiteBox SDR handheld transceiver, and there was a big crew staffing the digital voice demo. I fielded packet radio and APRS questions and filled in at the cash register and elsewhere while others took breaks.

Touring the Hamvention floor on Saturday, I stopped by the booth of the Society of Amateur Radio Astronomers. Since I dabble in both radio and astronomy, I thought that the booth would have something that interested me and I walked away with a radio telescope kit to receive signals from Jupiter, the Sun and the galactic plane. I will have more to say about this after I build the kit and get it on the air.

I hate the drive to and from Dayton, but I am already looking forward to doing it again next year!

Got OpenAPRS

When I bought my current set of wheels in 2007, I stopped using ham radio in the car except for special occasions because of the difficulty of installing ham radio equipment in a modern vehicle. On those special occasions, that is, my annual roadtrips to the Hamvention in Dayton, I would install a temporary 2-meter APRS set-up with wires and equipment laid out willy-nilly throughout the vehicle. Except for those trips, WA1LOU was off the APRS map.

And so it goes... until recently.

My family gifted me an iPhone 5 for Christmas and I love it. I am not a phone person; I only use the phone when absolutely necessary, so I never bothered owning a cell phone. However, the other capabilities of the iPhone sold me on it; for me, the iPhone is a pocket computer and its phone functions are secondary.

For my trek to Dayton this year, I uninstalled my Tom Tom GPS and replaced it with my iPhone mounted on the dashboard where the GPS used to reside uisng an iOttie HLCRIO104 Easy Flex 2 Windshield Dashboard Car/Desk Mount Holder (it works great and I highly recommend it).

Despite the disparaging reviews of the iPhone Maps app, I used Maps to get me to, from and around Dayton without a hiccup.

Since Hamvention, whenever I am in my car, I put the iPhone in the dashboard mount whether I use Maps or not because it is safer there than on the empty passenger seat or in the empty cup holder. And I have it plugged into a cigarette lighter charger so it is fully charged (or close to it) when I remove it from the dashboard mount.

Studying the iPhone mobile installation awhile back, I thought about running APRS with it. It would not be APRS via ham radio RF, but via cell phone RF, but it would still be APRS and a nice addition to my roadtrips. I searched the App Store to see what APRS apps were available for the iPhone. The App Store found a few, so I read the descriptions and the reviews trying to decide which one to download to my iPhone.

OpenAPRS was my choice. After downloading and registering it, I configured it. In the past, configuring an APRS installation was such a pain the dupa that you could write a book about it! Good news is that OpenAPRS is easy to configure - it took about a minute - and I had it up and running quickly.

After driving to work running OpenAPRS, I checked aprs.fi to see how well OpenAPRS performed and I was very happy to find my route perfectly drawn on the aprs.fi map; APRS via cell phone RF worked just as well as APRS via ham radio RF for that 22-mile trip.

By the way, Verizon is my cell phone RF provider and I am very happy with its service. For what it's worth, while staffing the TAPR booth in the Hara Arena at Hamvention this year, my iPhone had great cell phone RF service, while other people in the booth using iPhones with other cell phone service providers had poor or no service inside the arena.

Getting back to OpenAPRS... it has the following APRS-related screens:

Settings screen - where you push buttons and enter text to set up and control the software

Messaging screen - where you can enter texts to be sent via APRS

Search screen - to find other APRS stations

Objects screen - where you can create an APRS object

Maps screen - to display APRS activity on a map

OpenAPRS also has built-in a compass, a search FCC database function, technical support and help. Also, you can choose from three types of maps: a Google road map, a Google satellite map and a hybrid that combines features of the two.

What I like about the Google satellite map version is that when I zoom into my workplace, the current Google satellite image shows my green Subaru parked in the exact same spot where I usually park it every workday with my APRS station icon overlaid on my vehicle!

How cool is that!

Fill the Gap

UPDATED BELOW

Bob Bruninga, WB4APR, sent out a call for help to fill the gaps in the Appalachian Mountain chain of APRS stations attempting to achieve the coveted Golden Packet on Saturday, July 20.

Here is the text of WB4APR’s e-mail:

We have an urgent need for Ham Packet Ops on mountain tops in New Hampshire, Mount Greylock, MA, Sams Point, NY, Clingmans Dome in the Smokie Mountains and Roan Mountain NC.

This is a 4 hour event making our annual attempt at the Golden Packet, an APRS packet message from Maine to Georgia along the Appalachian Mountain Chain on Saturday 20 July.

All  you need is an APRS radio that can digipeat (D72, D700, D710) and a power source and antenna. (and Know how to operate it!)  All of these sites are “drive  up” except Sam’s point in New York.  The attempt is from noon to 4 PM.  Remember, Tim, KA1YBS has to begin in the dark to climb a full MILE straight up to get to the top of Mt Katahdin in Main and then get back down before sunset.  Hence, the 4 hour window.

This is our 4^th annual attempt and last year we were successful except for only one broken link in NH.  Will you be available to help make history?  The Golden Packet was proposed back in the early 80’s. It has never been claimed since the rise of the Internet that has eclipsed all DX packet attempts.  We will do this every year even beyond success.  It is a good test of emergency long distance packet techniques.

If you can activate one of the above 5 sites, please see detail links on this page for each site and learn all you can:

http://aprs.org/at-golden-packet.html

Think of this as Packet Radio FIELD DAY!  These 14 sites have been well surveyed and we know the links will work, if everyone can get in place and KNOW how to operate their radio.

Other secondary sites are also invited on Stone Mountain, GA, Lookout Mountain TN, and Huntsville Mountain.

Update: Bob indicated this morning that there are only two mountains remaining to be covered for this event: Killington, Vermont, and Clingmans Dome in the Great Smoky Mountains.

Surfin': APRS Finder

This week, Surfin’ repositions an airplane finder app to APRS-equipped vehicles.

Surfin’: Going Tropo

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Surfin’: Find Your Opening on the Map

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Surfin’: Updating Surfin’

This week, Surfin’ revisits and updates recent installments of itself.

Surfin’: Hill-Topping for the Golden Packet

This week, Surfin’ urges hams to climb every mountain on the East and West Coasts in the quest for the Golden Packet.

Surfin’: Got GPS? Maybe Not For Long!

This week, your Surfin’ conductor wears a worry-wart about losing a reliable friend.

Surfin’: APRS’ing the Tsunami

This week, Surfin’ describes how APRS provided vital information during last weekend's tsunami.

Surfin’: Send APRS Messages via HF PSK and GMSK

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Surfin’: Some Ham With My Pancakes

This week, Surfin’ successfully makes a connection between radio jacks and flapjacks.

Surfin’: Mappin’ Your Hammin’

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Surfin': Hodgepodge Is Just Another Word for Mishmash

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lightning

A thunderstorm blew through last night and one lightning strike did damage. It took out the landline, the DSL, a printer, and my weather station. It may have also damaged a phone, the DSL modem, and the WiFi transceiver, but I can't be certain until AT&T restores DSL and phone service. There may have been other damage, but I have not had an opportunity to check everything.

Odd that we never lost electric service and my APRS digipeater kept plugging away throughout the storm.

got good humidity

I have been monitoring my weather station closely since I got the outdoor humidity and temperature sensors back up and running on Friday afternoon and I noticed two things.

First, the bad news: I lose connectivity to the weather server for a few random hours each day. It may be something amiss with my APRS set-up or it may be network issues.

Now, the good news: I am not only getting outdoor humidity readings again, but now I am getting good outdoor humidity readings. The old humidity sensor always had very high readings, whereas the humidity readings from the new sensor compare favorably with the other nearby weather stations.

got humidity

The new cable for my weather station's outdoor humidity and temperature sensors arrived today. I swapped the old cable for the new cable and that solved the problem; my weather station has outdoor humidity and temperature readings again.

I examined the old cable, but could not see any problems with it. So I assume something internal to the cable or connector went bad.

Surfin': ATVing Digitally and APRSing Successfully

This week's Surfin' looks at Digital Amateur Television again and finds the new home of WB4APR.