Aprs

[shogun]

To branch off a previous thread, one of the advantages of Ham vs CB is APRS.

Yes, it looks very interesting as a way to keep track of your group. Many times we will send a pathfinder out ahead, or a side road to check the route. Ability to track would be nice. But in most cases, all the other vehicles wont have VHF/APRS radios. Other than hanging with a higher class of friends, how to make this work?

Is there an inexpensive APRS beacon that I could hand to another vehicle that allows me to track it? I assume transmit only since they probably wouldnt have the system to track.

 

[James86004]

There are the Microtraks:

http://byonics.com/microtrak/

They have self contained ones and ones that need to plug into your cigarette lighter.

One of the Arizona radio clubs let us borrow several self contained units of a different manufacture for our Rally. The biggest problem with them was finding a place to put a mag mount antenna on an aluminum bodied Land Rover. They worked pretty well otherwise as I recall.

 

[1911]

Is there an inexpensive APRS beacon that I could hand to another vehicle that allows me to track it? I assume transmit only since they probably wouldnt have the system to track.

The cheapest you're probably going to get would be to use an older single-band 2m radio with a TinyTrak and a cheapo hockey puck GPS receiver.

 

[cruiseroutfit]

I run a microtrak, rather than tie up my standard 2M I opted for a standalone system system that just did its thing and nothing else. They have to be pre-programmed with your call-sign an optional pre-fix so you can have more than one tracker ie mine is KE7FYQ-1

Out of shear curiousity, for those more versed in the ham regs, what is the policy on loaning your tracking unit out?

A track of our APRS hits on a recent trip:
http://www.expeditionportal.com/forum/showpost.php?p=704733&postcount=4