[aprssig] Balloons, Ham Radio and APRS in UK

[Curt, WE7U]

On Mon, 24 Apr 2006, Josh Freeman wrote:

> We cannot do APRS over FRS in the USA, because the FRS regulations
> prevent automated beaconing. The Garmin RINO units get around this by
> reporting position only upon user action or when polled by another
> station. I suppose you could manually poll a RINO in a balloon from the
> ground, but that might be a little frustrating during a balloon chase.
> Plus, there's the fixed-antenna-only restriction on FRS radios...

This is cheating a bit, but could you have two RINO's on-board, one
polling the other?

We have the capability in Xastir to have a connected RINO
periodically poll other RINO's.  If RINO's can't poll periodically
on their own (and I don't think they can), perhaps a PIC hooked to
the serial port could cause it to happen.  You'd be staying within
the letter of the rules, but probably not the intent.

You could then monitor the transmissions from the ground.

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