[aprssig] Overlooked TM-D710 Features

[Bob Bruninga]

> the radio as $599.  That's not free.  
> If I hook it to a weather station, it's 
> not doing other things.  That's not
> free, that's retasking.

I kinda thought that re-tasking is one of the great advantages of the flexibility and responsiveness of amateur radio.  On the other hand I am amazed at the number of people I run into that are using their D700 at their base station.   And it also cost $600.  

So apparently some people use the radio in the shack, and while it is sitting in the shack, it makes no sense to use the GPS port for GPS does it.  So if you have a home WX station, why not plug it in to that unused, but available APRS wx jack on the D710.  That way you dont have to run a PC all day just to report the weather.  In fact, you really only need a cat.  If the cat is wet, its raining.  And you can tell the temperature by the length from nose to tail.

Further, I dont think of ham radios as single purpose devices... I tend to think of them more creatively as multi-purpose tools ever ready to respond to the need at hand.  In some situations, one may need a dual band voice rig, in other situations a full APRS mobile, or in some cases maybe there is a need to report the wind speed and direction from a remote site and it would be easy to dispatch someone with a D710 up there.

There are storm chasers, and first responders, and disaster scenarios where I can think of advantages of being able to just plug in an anemometer and wind vane could be very valuable to an amateur radio response and support mission.

> And if you're using it for something, you 
> can't necessarily use it for something 
> _else_ at the same time.

Hummh.  I though the D710 was pretty multifunctional at the same time.  Lets see.  At the same time it can:
1) Act as a dual band radio
2) Operate APRS fully on the front panel
3) Operate Voice on multiple bands on the other side
4) Support the Voice-Alert intercom channel
5) Support a PC running APRS software
6) Be a Mobile with GPS input *or* a fixed WX station

Hummh, since the WX data is one way, I wonder if it can output waypoints to a GPS display while it is taking in WX data...  Hummh.  Then it could be used for both at the same time...

About the only thing it cannot do while doing base station WX is transmit to others the movements of your house with GPS...

>>> Did they fix the item display bug?
>> Why? The ITEM format is depricated...

> Oh, come ON Bob - it's in the spec formally 
> adopted by committee, and repealed in your 
> "spec" updates on your web page specifically 
> because the D7/700 couldn't do it!

Yep, and I stand behind that decision since my goals in APRS are to assure cross platform compatibility amongst the users to the best of my ability.  I fight hard to get compatibility among systems and to make sure that when one person transmits someting on his APRS system that he can have a reasonable expectation that the majority of recepients will receive it as intended.

>> Did they add some RAM to make it useful
>> for higher bandwidth packet applications?
>> I'm asking about RAM for IO buffering.
>> One common complaint about the D7/700 is
>> the single packet buffer makes it 
>> unsuitable for many non-APRS uses.

I think they have, though I have not tried it.

> I don't know why I get myself into these 
> discussions.

Me too.  But for anyone that is still reading, these kinds of discussions allow us to get to the bottom of what we are both trying to understand about what the other is saying...

Bob, Wb4APR