[aprssig] RE:Solar Powered Digi

Doug Ferrell kd4moj at kd4moj.org
Wed Feb 14 19:12:13 EST 2007


Kriss A Kliegle wrote:
>    I used an HTX-202, KPC-3, and a Peet Bros. WX station all solar
>    powered for years until I upgraded, by building an 8'x12' shed to
> house the voice repeater and associated gear... all of which is still
> 100% solar powered. HT's use less the least amount of power when idle
> (30-50mA) compared to a genuine mobile rig (+500mA). I installed all
> equipment in a box the size of a large birdhouse mounted to a piece
> of black iron pipe imbedded into the ground. Atop the pipe was a
> Diamond X-200 antenna, at 10' above ground level was the enclosure
> and the solar panel was mounted overhead at a 55 degree angle. The
> battery was a 17A/hr gel cell and was charged w/a 30 watt flexible
> panel rigidly mounted over the enclosure to keep rain/sun off the
> enclosure. A small solar charge controller was also squeezed into
> this box.

   What I have are Yaesu Ft-2600 mobiles and KPC-3's so I'm kinda stuck with
that. Have some fiberglass 30ft poles (like they sell on E=Bay) and Diamond
X50 antennas.  I like the idea of the box for all the electronics. I have
the batteries but not the solar panel or controller... got to look and see
what is available on the cheap. Problem will be the setup and takedown since
the route is 100 miles on the Sat then 100 miles back on another route
(pretty close to the first one) on Sunday. We did it last year with a couple
of RV's serving as the temp digi's but we are minus one this year and we
could have had better placement of the temps as we analyzed the route after
the tour. Here is the URL of the tour: http://cccyclists.org/tosrv.php




>     For just a few days, a simple HT, TNC, known good charged battery
>     and simple verticle antenna should do just fine. If you want to
> keep out all the unwanted packets, use a different frequency than the
> APRS standard. That way you won't QRM the network, and they won't QRM
> your event. I do the same thing for Tour de Cure (American Diabetes
> bike tour in SE New Hampshire). I issue Open trackers to
> participating vehicles on a discrete frequency, crank up their TX
> rate so net control has updates every minute on their positions
> throughout the event while they are in motion. I also change the
> frequency of the two local digipeaters to match them for the weekend.
> Works great, and gives net control much better SA when things go bad.

  Sounds like alot of work changing freqs. Seems to be easier to change the
digi's to only respond only to the tactical path (remote in to change) so
they won't hit any other digi's out of the area. Not too much a problem here
in FL/So Georgia with the traffic that we have unless the band opens.

...DOUG
KD4MOJ
-5, -7 Digi's








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