[aprssig] Is Open Tracker abandonware?

[Scott Miller]

The Tracker4 was introduced a while back but we had to take it off the 
market because the WiFi modules and microcontrollers are unobtanium. 
We're not expecting to be able to get more of the MCUs until summer of 
next year.

The SiLabs WiFi modules were also a huge pain in the butt. Hard to 
inspect and prone to soldering problems, and SiLabs never got the 
firmware totally stable. They got the design in the acquisition of 
BlueGiga (which they wanted more for their BLE product line, I 
understand) and then dropped it in favor of a product line they got 
somewhere else, so it's an orphan and getting them to fix anything is 
like pulling teeth. So I'm not too broken up about those going away, but 
replacing all of the code that was written specifically for it is going 
to take a while.

So the old stuff is still available as long as we're still able to get 
parts. Some of the other items like the SSTVCAM also have supply issues, 
so our radio-related offerings are slim right now. We've just about got 
mass production squared away for the ADS-SR1 simplex repeater again (we 
got really lucky and snagged 3,000 MCUs that unexpectedly popped up) and 
we can probably get the ADS-WS1 weather station back into limited 
production before long. We're also working on an air quality monitor 
version.

The new forum system was thrown up quickly when Yahoo Groups shut down 
and I never found a good way to import all of the old messages, and the 
new forum didn't really catch on. We're planning a total replacement of 
the website in the coming months so it may get converted into something 
else.

73,

Scott
N1VG

On 3/14/2022 7:27 AM, Rich Osman wrote:
> I've been out of the loop for a while and I'm looking at building a 
> few new trackers. Started looking at options and the Open tracker 
> family from Argent.  I noticed that all the tracker support forum 
> links off the Argent Data site to to n longer existing Yahoo fora.  I 
> found the Argent hosted fora another way and find most of the 
> discussions are over 6 months old.  Most of the product dates are 10 ± 
> years old.
>
> Am I missing something, or is this no longer really an option? What is?
>
> It's looking like my options are a Tinytracker or roll my own (which 
> I'm loath to take the time to do.)
>
> Rich, N1OZ
>
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