[aprssig] REVIEW: Way Cool Gadget! Wrist Wearable GPS is great with TH-D7, TinyTrak or PocketTracker!

[carl szentes]

gadget sounds neat!!!.........thanks for the good explanation of the serial
port start up voltage......best I have seen.  I use the rad shak gps and
also wire in parallel a palm unit to display map of position WITH  the TH-D7
connected......the gps sees two inputs of start up voltage....It works for
me.
I would like to be able to see the received positions from other hams on the
palm unit however. Of course I could use the THD7 output to PC and another
palm, but not as simple as one would want....

Carl
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Stephen H. Smith" <WA8LMF2 at aol.com>
To: "TAPR APRS Special Interest Group" <aprssig at lists.tapr.org>
Sent: Friday, August 27, 2004 4:45 AM
Subject: [aprssig] REVIEW: Way Cool Gadget! Wrist Wearable GPS is great with
TH-D7, TinyTrak or PocketTracker!


>
> Excerpt from the full review, with more information and photos, posted
> on my website at:
>      http://members.aol.com/wa8lmf/aprs/Foretrex.htm
>
>
> Garmin ForeTrex 201  "Personal Navigator"  Wrist GPS
>
> This GPS receiver may well be the ultimate accessory for the Kenwood
> TH-D7 APRS hand-held radio.  The TH-D7 has a serial data input jack for
> transmitting position reports provided by an attached GPS receiver.
> However most GPS devices are nowhere near as conveniently portable as
> the Kenwood radio.
>
> The Garmin ForeTrex 201 "Personal Navigator" is a miniature GPS receiver
> that you wear on your wrist like a watch.  The device is secured to your
> wrist with a Velcro strap and is powered by an internal rechargeable
> lithium-ion battery.  Specs in the manual say the battery will power the
> unit for up to 15 hours.   The unit is WAAS-enabled.  The built-in patch
> antenna is astonishingly sensitive. I found that it worked quite
> consistently while walking with my arm by my side, with no special
> efforts to orient the unit favorably to the sky.  It even worked inside
> the car as long as I wore it on my left hand and kept my left hand on
> the steering wheel. ( I assume one would have to wear it on the right
> hand to get the same results in the U.K!) The unit lists for USD $179
> but I got mine through an Internet mail-order dealer for $135 .
>
> The ForeTrex works perfectly with the TH-D7, D700 and virtually all
> moving map programs running on PCs . I have tested it with Delorme
> Street Atlas,  Topo USA!, UI-View, APRSplus, Visual GPS and others.
>
> The main connection issue is that, like the Radio Shack Digitraveller
> GPS, the unit's serial port won't start talking until it sees a non-zero
> voltage on  the data input pin.  Any voltage, positive or negative, of
> more than about 1 volt on the input pin will turn the serial port on.
> In other words, you can't use a simple two-wire (TXD and GND/COMMON)
> hookup.
>        This presents no problem with either a PC or a TH-D7, both of
> which present a non-zero voltage (most PC ports are quiescent at -8
> volts or so while the TH-D7 presents  +5 volts out). This is a problem
> with the TinyTrak since it's data output line is set to zero volts
> during normal operation (i.e. when not being programmed).   Probably the
> simplest way to handle the TinyTrak is to apply +5 volts from it's
> internal regulator through a 1K resistor to the data input line of the
> ForeTrex.
>
>
> Stephen H. Smith                   wa8lmf (at) aol.com
>
> Home Page:                            http://wa8lmf.com
>
>
>
>
>
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