Re: [SAR_APRS] Re: Introduction / intergration question

On Wed, 1 Nov 2006, L Ellis wrote:

> I understand that Xastir uses a connected Garmin Rino to get
> position fixes of other Rinos in the area.
>
> you say
> > plot them on the local screen, and create APRS objects which it
> > transmits out to APRS stations.
>
> I assuming this secondary transmission occurs over HAM and would
> require connecting a second radio in the field to transmit positions
> for public APRS tracking on the web.

Yes. In this configuration you'd probably have one of the cheaper RINO's attached to a pole at base with a longish serial cable connecting to an Xastir box inside. You'd then have a 2-meter radio attached to an antenna and TNC, with the TNC attached to Xastir, but the TNC portion in this case can be software-based (like "soundmodem" for Linux or "AGWPE" for Windows).


> Am I correct or is there a more efficent way of doing this in the
> field other than connecting directly via the internet?

There shouldn't be any internet involved. Just two radios, a TNC, an antenna for the 2-meter (the RINO already has an attached antenna), and a PC or Mac running Xastir.


> Do you have any recommendations on configurations of HAM with Rino
> connections talking to Xastir?

I don't recall whether anyone has gotten GPSMan to work under Windows yet. They might have though. The general configuration I'd recommend would be a Linux box running Xastir, with a hardware TNC attached to the 2-meter.

Any more discussion on this should probably be done over on the Xastir list, as this is probably getting too detailed & specific to be of much use to the general list here.

I don't know what the range is on those RINO's either. If you're running under FRS they don't go far. If you're using GMRS, I'm not sure whether the positioning data goes out at the high-power level with those, it might still be at the low-power FRS transmit level.

So... They might not be of general interest to SAR if you can't get much range out of them.

--
Curt, WE7U. APRS Client Comparisons: http://www.eskimo.com/~archer


--- In SAR_APRS@yahoogroups.com, "Curt, WE7U" wrote:

> I don't recall whether anyone has gotten GPSMan to work under
> Windows yet. They might have though. The general configuration I'd
> recommend would be a Linux box running Xastir, with a hardware TNC
> attached to the 2-meter.

I think the main problem with GPSMan/Xastir on windows was related to he "gpsmanshp" plug-in that allows xastir to download shapefile maps from GPS tracks. This is a shared library that GPSMan uses, and that doesn't play well with Windows.

GPSMan itself is just a TCL/Tk program, and should work fine without the gpsmanshp plugin on Windows/Cygwin. That's all that is needed for the RINO interface, as in this case xastir just reads the .gpstrans file that gpsman produces directly.

You're right, though, that further discussion of that probably belongs on the Xastir list instead.

--
Tom Russo KM5VY SAR502 DM64ux http://www.swcp.com/~russo/
Tijeras, NM QRPL#1592 K2#398 SOC#236 http://kevan.org/brain.cgi?DDTNM

Rino integration w APRS

Re: [SAR_APRS] Introduction / intergration question

On Sat, 28 Oct 2006, Sean Smith wrote:

> Now for my question, this summer while I was off in Ontario chasing
> forest fires the group purchased several Garmin Rinos, is there
> software other then Dmapper that can take both APRS and Rino data
> and display it on a map. Dmapper's limited stations, 6 I believe
> just doesn't cut it.

Xastir can use an attached RINO radio to poll other RINO radios,
plot them on the local screen, and create APRS objects which it
transmits out to APRS stations. There's no limit to the number of
stations it can track. I've had 39,000+ stations being tracked
lately.a

See the links section of this group, one of the SAR wiki page that I
contribute to talks about the SAR features in the various APRS
programs, and the APRS Client Capabilities Chart goes into more
detail.

Garmin Rino Radio w APRS

Garmin RINO Radio/GPS plus Xastir APRS Client
Xastir, combined with GPSMan, can perodically download waypoints from an attached RINO radio. Any waypoint beginning with "APRS" will have that portion of the string stripped, then the waypoint will be turned into an APRS object which will appear on the map and may be retransmitted out over APRS as well. Useful for those SAR missions where some people are equipped with RINO's and others with TH-D7A's or TM-D700A's. The RINO users will see each other, the APRS users will see the other APRS users plus the RINO users. The Xastir screen will show all of them.

Garmin RINO Radio/GPS plus OziAPRS Client
OziAPRS has the capability of decoding Garmin Rhino positions. You must have a Garmin Rino connected to the OziAPRS serial port for this to work. This will allow you to plot the positions of other Rino units on the Oziexplorer map screen, but it won't feed the data to your APRS client. Some SAR units are experimenting with this method rather than using APRS. I don't believe position reports are allowed on GMRS, but they are on FRS.