[aprssig] Thinking about YAAC

[wa7skg]

Well, I have the TNC, it interfaces nicely with my radio and computer. 
To switch to Direwolf, I will need to add some kind of sound card and 
kludge together some kind of interface to the serial port to provide 
PTT. Or I can spend way too much money on something like a SignaLink. 
So, really, moving to Direwolf not only does not eliminate a box, it 
adds one (which must be homebrewed) as well as adding another cable, 
which must be fabricated.

Anything around me looks like it comes through digipeaters anyhow, and 
there are multiple digis with very strong signals near me, so it's not 
like I'm trying to receive fly farts at a hundred miles. So, I think I 
can get by with the existing TNC as far as receive performance goes.

It looks like the easiest fix is to upgrade the firmware. You mention 
you have done a bunch of these, so I assume it is pretty 
straightforward, just swapping out the PROM chip. I do see on the TAPR 
website that this upgrade requires 32k of SRAM. I find nothing in the 
manual that tells me definitively how much SRAM this things has. Again, 
this is the MFJ-1274, which is the MFJ-1207B with the tuning indicator. 
So, how do I determine if I need the memory upgrade that TAPR specifies?

Thanks,
Michael WA7SKG


Stephen H. Smith wrote on 12/8/19 9:16 PM:
> On 12/8/2019 11:19 PM, wa7skg wrote:
>> I'm looking at alternatives to Xastir for an APRS client and ran 
>> across YAAC. The only mailing list I found was for Alpha testers on 
>> Yahoo groups. Of course Yahoo groups is a dying animal, so I thought 
>> I'd try here.
>>
>> My first issue in setting up YAAC is with my hardware. I have an old 
>> original MFJ-1274(NO suffix) TNC2 clone. It does not do KISS, so I'm 
>> wondering if it will work with YAAC. Still looking for up to date 
>> documentation.
>>
>> After setting this up on my base, I am planning to use it mobile with 
>> an RPi and TNC-Pi.
>>
>> Looking for any comments, experiences, etc.
>>
>> tnx es 73,
>> Michael WA7SKG
> 
> 
> Try using DireWolf or the UZ7HO Soundmodem instead of the archaic 
> 40-year-old hardware TNC2 device.  These  soundcard soft TNCs have 
> infinitely better performance on weak marginal signals than legacy 
> hardware --and-- present both AGWpe and KISS-over-IP interfaces to 
> applications.  They also eliminate a box and the nearly half-amp @ 12VDC 
> power drain of the TNC2.
> 
> Note that the UZ7HO Soundmodem is a Windows application (though I have 
> heard it can be made to work in Linux with a Wine kludge). DireWolf is 
> available in native versions for both Windows and Linux -- i.e. would be 
> usable on the Pi.
> 
> If you really want to use the legacy MFJ-1274, replace it's MFJ firmware 
> eproms with the final release of the generic TAPR TNC2 firmware (ver 
> 1.1.9) which DOES have KISS mode.       I've put this in numerous MFJ 
> TNC2 clones and it works just fine.
> 
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
>    Stephen H. Smith    wa8lmf (at) aol.com
> Skype:        WA8LMF
> EchoLink:  Node #  14400  [Think bottom of the 2-meter band]
> Home Page: http://wa8lmf.net
> 
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