Not much

Not much to report. The PX-777 gets out well, even in areas where other 5w mobile stations are having problems.
Our radio club has voted to set up a digipeater at the club house. We have a good location which covers an area known to be difficult to other digipeaters. We are going to purchase the Argent Data Tracker2 which will, as a stand-alone unit, perform as a digipeater, as a weather station (we have an Ultimeter 2100) and telemetry. With a PC it will do anything else you can do using KISS TNC.
The radio will be a converted FM92 commercial VHF at 25w. The antenna is a j-pole until we can get the Comet high gain mounted on the tower.

Something to do during morning tea break

Click the pic to see the whole thing

More changes to mobile APRS

After much consideration I decided to keep power to the GPS16 receiver permanently. The reason is my intention to eventually install a car PC. The second is that I would like to come up some sort of arrangement that will activate the APRS should the car end up being driven by someone other than me and parked where it might not be easy to find. This would probably involve some sort of device that I would carry and be detected. If the car is started and driven without the device being detected, the APRS turns on and remains on until I intervene. The device would probably be an RFID or somesuch. The car PC would also log all GPS activity at all times.

To allow for GPS connectivity to a PC, I made and installed a splitter between the RS232 GPS and the OpenTracker+. The splitter simply feeds RS232 signal from GPS to two outputs. This was tested with the APRS running and the netboook connected through a 4 port USB-to-RS232 device at the same time and it worked fine. I will need to make sure that the car PC and OT+ can't both talk to the GPS at the same time or something will collide. There shouldn't be any need for either to TX to the GPS anyway.

Still looking for a VGA LCD display that can be powered from 12V, around 10". I could buy an old laptop and hack the display to extend it from the body, but I'm not sure what cable length I could use before it becomes unstable. I suspect it wouldn't be much. I refuse to install an inverter just to power a mains-powered LCD! There are some in-dash displays available but the price is just way over the top for a project like this and besides, I can't install in-dash in the work vehicle.

Dollar

Hey, if you are advertising something on the internet then have the courtesy to state what dollar you are using. We don't feel like searching your web pages for 20 minutes to find out what country you are based in (and even that is still guessing) If your web site its www.something-or-other.com then you could be anywhere in the known universe. The internet goes that far. Just so you get it, here a list of countries that use dollars:

Australian dollar
Bahamian dollar
Barbados dollar
Belize dollar
Bermuda dollar
Brunei dollar
Canadian dollar
Cayman Islands dollar
East Caribbean dollar
Fiji dollar
Guyanese dollar
Hong Kong dollar
Jamaican dollar
New Zealand dollar
Namibian dollar
Rhodesian dollar
Singapore dollar
Solomon Islands dollar
Taiwan dollar
Trinidad and Tobago dollar
Zimbabwe dollar
United States dollar

Better still, have a gadget on the web page to let us change what currency your prices are displayed as. Plenty of websites do it. They are probably getting our business instead of you.

Aussie Aussie Aussie

Happy Australia Day from AX6UFO
Installing everything properly. Everything was held together with duct tape and cables running through doorways. Looking at buying a cheapie Nagoya NL-770R antenna which should get the 5 watts out a little better than the mag base ¼ wave. The NL-770R appears to be a clone of the Diamond NR-770R. I can buy three of these cheapies for the price of one locally purchased Diamond.

Connect PX-777 to OT+ using free earpiece

Here's how I connected my PX-777 to the OpenTracker+ using the free earpiece/mike. Your earpiece may be different. Use this information at your own risk. If you can't see the whole image then just click on it.
The easiest way I found was to crack open the mike/PTT thingie using a pair of pliers or similar (it came apart quite easily) and then desolder the wires from the mike, PTT button and wire leading to the ear piece. The wires are coloured as in the diagram. The 'copper' wire was just that, no colour to the insulation.
This method is a lot easier than cutting the cable off and trying to tin the individual wires. This type of wire can be tricky to tin. I mounted the DB-9M inside a standard shell. Make sure the wires are restrained properly otherwise it's all going to fall apart. I put several layers of heatshrink tubing over the wires as the restraining clamp would not have enough to clamp down on.
I also built a voltage regulator to power the PX-777 without batttery. I used an LM317 TO-220 in the normal configuration built on some veroboard (stripboard). I included the input and output capacitors as well as the reverse protection diodes.
After measuring the voltage of the fully charged battery, I found that the radio is happy to run from 8.2 volts, so I set the LM317 to that. I probably could have used a 7808 regulator but I didn't have one.
I powered the PX-777, OT+ and GPS16-HVS all from the regulator and it worked fine on a 30 minute journey. I wouldn't recommend transmitting with the radio for normal QSOs, especially if the regulator isn't on a decent heatsink like mine isn't. The regulator can handle the occasional 1 second data transmissions but it probably won't like continuous duty. I found some information on the battery eliminator you can buy for these radios and they are rated at 3 amps. I doubt the radio draws 3 amps though. I probably should measure it some time...
To connect power to the radio without a battery I am using nippy clips (small insulated alligator/crocodile clips.. whatever colloquialism you want use) temporarily until I find a better solution. I might end up just getting a battery eliminator anyway.

More PX-777

Can you program a PX-777 with Icom or Yaesu cables? No. If you have a programming cable for other radios that is 'one wire' (ie the TX and RX comms travel down one wire) then they will not work. Later Icoms and Yaesus seem to use these. Most Chinese radios seem to be compatible with Kenwood and use separate TX and RX line. Some earlier Icoms and Yaesus do use two wire but I don't know if they are true RS232 or are TTL. Let me know.
On the plus side, you can use the USB TTL adaptor that I mentioned in the previous post on some (maybe all?) newer Icoms. All you need to do is join the RX and TX lines together on the TTL side and add a suitable lead. I've done exactly that with the adaptor I mentioned connected to an IC-706MKIIG and an IC-208H. You need the software as well :-)
I'm looking at why I can't do the same with Yaesu. The way the TX and RX are tied together seems to be different. Probably the same reason why I can't use the 3rd party Icom adaptor I bought on a VX-3R or FT-1802.
I also forgot to mention in my previous - when programming the PX-777, you don't need to set the radio into a particular mode. Just turn it on, plug the plug(s) in and start communications.
Found the issue with the unit not charging in the charger. The charger has two projections, one either side that slot into grooves on the battery. It's possible to insert the radio so the projections are completely behind the whole unit. There's way too much play in the bay. Just pay attention to how you push it in.
I plan on playing with this radio for a few days as a regular handheld for voice just to see what they are like. So far the
Pros: Seems to get out well. Software is legally free and can be made to work. All documentation including service manual and informtion for interfacing is publicly available. Speaker volume is definitely not lacking! (See cons) Kenwood handheld accessories are interchangeable. Easy to interface for packet/APRS. LiPo battery. 12v charger for easy adaptation to mobile and portable use and uses a standard 2.1mm DC plug. Solid contruction. Plenty of information on line how to disassemble and reassemble.

and cons: Antenna connector gender isn't logical. Volume control goes from soft to LOUD very quickly. Software, although free, is poorly written. English voice announcer could be made by someone who speaks English without accent (my wife's NavMan does several different English accents and US American) The English manual needs translating to English. No biggy but the selectable colours for the LED illumination are just weird: Violet, blue and orange. Violet? Some obvious functions are completely omitted from the manual; eg How to get it to display channel tags instead of the frequency. Stumbled upon that one on tha interweb. Can't plug in a standard external speaker - get a 3.5mm to 2.5mm adaptor (they do exist; my Laser DMP is the same) The PTT button is very touchy. I sneezed a while ago and three callsigns said "Gesundheit." OK slight exaggeration but would need to modify for day-to-day use. Was the same for my FT-1802 mike.

Sorry about the typing... I'm on teh netbook.