[Xastir] D700A + GPS + Xastir

[Josh Keller]

I've tried getting this to work but I have had no success. I've got Xastir
setup with a Serial TNC interface, and my D700A is setup in packet mode.
Xastir grabs all of the stations the 700 hears, and looking at the incoming
data I can see what appears to be the GPS data, but how do I get Xastir to
use it for my station location?

I tried adding a second interface under Xastir, and just using the same
serial port but I get a hard fail, which I expected.

Thanks,
Josh

-----Original Message-----
From: JD Erskine [mailto:VA7OTC at rac.ca] 
Sent: Monday, May 03, 2004 01:39
To: Josh Keller
Cc: xastir at xastir.org
Subject: Re: [Xastir] D700A + GPS + Xastir

Hi Josh,

At 23:13 5/2/04 -0700, Josh Keller wrote:
>Is there a way to connect a GPS to the D700A, then connect the D700A to
>Xastir and have Xastir grab the GPS coordinates? 

Yup, did this with my D7 and some APRS clients and just reading the manuals
for a D700 and the help files for some APRS clients again.

Putting the D700 in Packet mode vice APRS is what you want. The GPS NMEA
sentence is then passed to the serial port of the radio and to your
computer/APRS client (XASTIR). Check the initialisation file. In this case
the internal Tasco TNC is being used however none of the D700 APRS 'smarts'
(same with D7). One may, to totally make one wonder why they bought a D700,
bypass the internal TNC and use an external one :{P

>I've tried adding an
>interface with the Serial TNCw/ GPS on HSP cable option but that doesn't
>seem to work. I'd like to be able to do this so when we setup our SAR base
>Xastir automatically updates my station location and transmits our actual
>base position.

Don't bother in this case. You'll transmit the position of your site/GPS
receiver which is passed to Xastir, out from Xastir, via the D700's TNC and
RF deck to the network.
With this rig you don't require an HSP.

If the radio is mounted in a mobile or portable (real/historical
definition), then with a connected GPS rx your position enroute or upon set
up would be transmitted very quickly. As soon as you get the computer set
up and Xastir running you can have the initialisation file reconfigure the
radio to Packet mode and carry on. Should you wish.

>On a side note, what type of antenna would you suggest for our base
station,
>which will be used 99% of the time strictly for RX. Right now I've built
>myself a groundplane out of welding rods which seems to work good.but is
>there anything better that can be home built or purchased relatively cheap?
>
>
>Thanks,
>
>Josh 

If you're in mountains you may not wish too much gain if it negatively
affects your radiation pattern and coverage. Ground plane is good, J pole
or other half wave is good though vertically narrower 'beamwidth'.
LOS/terrain/team info required.

Cheers, JD - coming back to life and playing with stuff.


John D. Erskine

mailto:sailargh at victoria.tc.ca  or  mailto:VA7OTC at rac.ca  same box
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