iPhone, PocketPacket, Baofeng UV5R and APRS

[robtwright]

Good gosh, I got it working!

I see that John dropped the diode from his design. That's good to know.

I mounted the 3 resistors and the two capacitors on a little piece of cardboard and soldered the connections. Before, when I had it connected with just alligator clips, I had all kinds of strange problems.

Contrary to what others report, one thing I've found is that I need to connect to the Baofeng mic ground. When I connect to the Baofeng speaker ground, it takes a long time, maybe 15 seconds, for vox to drop a packet transmission. I don't know if that's because of a longer duration of audio coming from the iPhone or if something else is going on. So, far, it doesn't seem to matter. The connection to the mic ground seems to be working OK.

My thanks to John for coming up with the circuit design and sharing it with us.

I hope someday somebody will find a way for an iPhone to function as a TNC for packet BBS and/or Winlink. That would be really nice.

Robert
N6AIR

 

[k5non]

This is the best info on the net for doing this. I will have to head back to the electronic parts store to make the cable described here. I'm new to APRS I'm wondering what settings for Pocket Packet you all are using.

About the app itself:
I've not had any luck with it transmitting the APRS by holding radio mic next to iPhone.




Here are my Settings let me know if anything looks drastically wrong?:
GENERAL
I've entered my callsign
Track: ON
Report Altitude: ON
Symbol: Set (Jeep)
Comment: Testing Iphone RX
Transmit Timer: Varies (I've tried multiple and find if you move slider it forces a transmit)

View Options and Messagingall defaults

APRS-IS Connection Settings
Enabled: "Off" (when this first two are "on" it reports to APRS network using cell coverage)
Transmit: "Off"
Passcode: my code is entered
Server: texas.aprs.net:1480


Audio Modem (this is where it counts)
Enabled: "On"
Transmit: "On"
Digipeater Path: Via1: "WIDE1-1 Via2: WIDE2-1 VIA3&4 are empty



I've been using Open APRS for a while but that is relying on the cell data not RF so I wanted to get this RF thing setup and running using Posket Packet and eventually on an old Iphone3gs I have and dedicate it to a "go" bag for bicycle mobile operations.

Thanks,
K5NON

 

[nckwltn]

This is the best info on the net for doing this. I will have to head back to the electronic parts store to make the cable described here. I'm new to APRS I'm wondering what settings for Pocket Packet you all are using.

About the app itself:
I've not had any luck with it transmitting the APRS by holding radio mic next to iPhone.

Your settings looks similar to what I have. I've found that the speaker on the iPhone doesn't output enough audio to transmit over the radio. Take a pair of headphones, plug them into the iPhone, and hold the headphone up to the radio mic... turn the volume way up on the iPhone

 

[thehamguy1]

I'm having problems with the vox. It's activated by the iPhone but after the transmission, it hangs for several seconds.

Another oddity I'm experiencing is that the Baofeng will respond to an incoming radio signal by transmitting silent audio.

I have this circuit working on both TX and RX with my iPhone5, and have seen my callsign show up on another APRS monitoring source so I know the transmissions are being picked up and passed along. YAY! Many thanks to John for this circuit.
I found that it will work only on RX on my iPad. When I connect the mic part of the circuit the radio begins switching back and forth constantly between TX and RX even if I don't have transmit enabled in the app. On the iPhone everything works as it should. That's OK with me; it's the iPhone I intend to use it with anyway.

As to the VOX hang time, I have about 3 or 4 seconds of it, and I guess I'll have to live with it as I don't think it can be fixed by any setting I've found. I also had the silent audio transmissions you refer to until I set the VOX higher--to 4. I theorize there was transient/stray audio from the iPhone that was keying it.

Anyway, the only problem I have now is that I'm playing with it all the time (grin).

Lee, WU0V

 

[thehamguy1]

Here's a photo of my iPhone5 on a little stand I made, with John's circuit strapped on the back:

 

[thehamguy1]

If at first you don't succeed...

 

[thehamguy1]

And of course I meant my UV-5RA on the stand. Brain barely engaged today!

 

[HallB]

So I am putting together the cable modification posted by John Boiles but I have a question. The schematic here shows the sleeve on the 3.5mm uv5r mic side going to ground. The schematic on the GitHub website shows it terminating to nothing. Which is correct? If it needs to be grounded, do I just tie it in with the 2.5mm uv5r spk wire?

 

[gahi]

View attachment 204357 If at first you don't succeed...

I've been messing with this, using John's circuit board. Not having any luck at this point, sending or receiving. Any details on your setup? Sending and receiving? Thanks,

 

[Paindoc52]

I recognize that this is somewhat of a Zombie post - rising from the dead.

I bought and soldered up one of John Boiles circuits using the boards from GitHub. I'm using a Wouxon KG-UVD1P instead of the Baofeng. Pinout is the same at the radio plugs.
Running IOS PP on my iPhone 5, the app works, but then crashes the phone requiring a hard reset. Hmmmmnn?

Running the Mac App on my MacBook Air (same interface cable - pinout is the same at the combined audio/mic port) the app works well, but every time a packet is transmitted, iTunes starts up on my Mac!. I have iTunes Helper disabled as a startup app, and killed the running process, but still happens. Hmmmmnn?

Wrapped the interface cable end to end with aluminum foil and problem stopped!

Now I need to figure out a shielded cable, or add choking toroids, or insert a high pass filter to remove stray rf.

Tom

 

[AlbanyTom]

just a random data point - in looking for info on hooking up audio to androids, I've read that some flavors of apple devices use dc signaling via resistors on the mike in for pushbuttons or something. I don't know if that could be it, just guessing. If that's it, the fix could be to force the dc part to be some specific thing w/ a resistor or two. Again, I don't know mac interface, so this is a guess. Also, if your interference is common mode, an 1:1 audio transformer might get rid of it, as close to the computer side as possible.

 

[11bravo]

Finally maybe I've hit the right web site to get some help.

I'm trying to figure out which plug rings on the Baofeng and the iphone plugs match the John Boiles TRRS/UV5R PCB. Such as plug ring numbers assigned to the wires on the schematic. I don't quite understand the schematic symbol and the relation to the rings on the jack or plug which ever it is called that I'm trying to match up. I don't want to smoke my radio or iphone by getting it wrong.
I will attach the schematic which I edited with the plugs hoping someone can match the plug rings and schematic for me. If you would edit the schematic and place the plug ring numbers on the wires in the drawing, and repost it. Also attached the PCB with a question about soldering a jumper between the two points.
many thanks
Ken K5XOM

 

[climbermatt]

Im New to APRS and have been searching tirelessly for a way top connect my FTM 400 to my iPad for Map tracking. Is there any way this will work with the data output jack on my radio? I dont want to switch to a windows tablet.

 

[1Louder]

Im New to APRS and have been searching tirelessly for a way top connect my FTM 400 to my iPad for Map tracking. Is there any way this will work with the data output jack on my radio? I dont want to switch to a windows tablet.

I'm pretty sure apple restricts the ports so you can't do it. Go to 4x4ham.com. There are doom good articles and links on the subject.

 

[robtwright]

After a great deal of frustration, I broke down and bought the cable that Baofeng makes and all problems went away. It cost me $20 from Amazon. No problems now using it with an iPhone or Android with any APRS app.