[aprssig] New Cell Phone

[Stephen H. Smith]

Stan Coleman wrote:
>
> Stan - N0YXV
>
> Yes this is APRS related. :-)
>
> I'm thinking about purchasing a 'Motorola Moto Q' and I was wondering 
> if anybody had any experience with it and APRS. I'm looking for both 
> pros and cons.
>
> One thing I was wondering is will it work with Blue Tooth GPS devices? 
> I know it has Blue Tooth but my experience with Blue Tooth is that not 
> all advertised features work with all Blue Tooth devices. One review I 
> read said that you couldn't use the Q as a modem for say your laptop 
> via Blue Tooth. [Why couldn't Blue Tooth be just like Ethernet ... if 
> it says it has Ethernet you know anything else with Ethernet will talk 
> complete Ethernet to it.] Isn't there some kind of GPS built into most 
> phones now? If so can you use that with APRS?
>
> What APRS software is out there for it? I noticed the APRS/CE looks 
> like it works with most 'Windows Mobile OS's'. The fact that the Q 
> doesn't have a touch screen might be a problem.

1)   Does this phone run Windows Mobile or some other phone OS?

2)   APRS/CE is a dead product no longer actively being developed.



>
> I can almost hear it now...why pick the Q? Because my phone provider 
> (US Cellular) only has the Q and two Blackberry's to choose from. 
> While I probably could figure out how to get another brand to work 
> with my carrier I'd like to save some dough by getting a reduced cost 
> phone with a new 2 year contract. [Who came up with the stinking 2 
> year long idea anyway...I thought it was bad when I signed 1 year 
> contracts.] If I wasn't stuck buying a phone from US Cellular what 
> phone would people recommend? My only real requirements for a mobile 
> phone is that it be more like a computer with email, Internet, large 
> screen and hopefully be able to run APRS and/or other Ham Software 
> when I'm away from my radio. Would really be cool if I could integrate 
> both a GPS and a TNC with the phone.
>
>

It's probably typical carrier "lock-in" where the cell carrier disables 
many features the mfr put into the the phone, so they can force you to 
buy ring tones from them.  Or force you to burn expensive air time 
getting pics out of the camera.  The Q is a Motorola device. There are 
numerous sites on the Web dedicated to unlocking Moto phones and 
re-enabling features such as advanced Bluetooth access, local 
"sideloading" of photos and ringtones (i.e. directly up/downloading this 
stuff to your local computer via USB or Bluetooth.), etc.   One with a 
ton of info and downloadable phone hack utilities is:

     <http://mark.cdmaforums.com/>

Very unlikely you will get any normal ham software to run on these 
devices, since these phones don't run "real" Windows or other mainstream 
operating systems.   My guess is that you should wait until an iPhone 
clone that works with your carrier is offered; i.e. a phone with a large 
enough screen to browse the Internet normally rather than having to 
mangle pages into a special dumbed down "mobile"version.  [There are 
going to be a number of iPhone-like devices offered by non-Apple mfrs 
for use on non-ATT networks this coming year.  Several are already in  
use in Asia and Europe.]

Then run an APRS program with an included webserver like UI-View at 
home,and remote access it from the phone.   Or run the stationary 
computer's desktop with a remote-access product like "GotoMyPC" that 
allows access to the controlled PC from any (normal) browser, including 
wireless devices,  without having to have special software on the phone.



--

Stephen H. Smith    wa8lmf (at) aol.com
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