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<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 8/20/2019 11:09 AM, KB5ILY - Travis
W. Burton wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:alpine.BSF.2.20.16.1908201101380.8467@hamza.pair.com">At
our monthly Amateur exam session this past Saturday nobody showed
up to test, so that left the 4 VEs to find something else to do
for a while, have a discussion of things. One of the subjects
that came up was APRS, and it ended up going this way...
<br>
<br>
2 Kenwoods, a Yaesu and my Alinco; all have built-in TNCs so there
is a data port for GPS input on all. Can we do any or all of the
following; A. Use retired cell phone as GPS.
<br>
B. Use an Amazon Kindle, Apple iPad or other such tablet (with or
without internet access, but *not* accessing APRS-IS) as station
map display?
<br>
</blockquote>
<p><br>
</p>
<p>Basically, NO to all these questions...</p>
<p>1) Most of these devices have NO WAY to export data from their
internal GPS devices.</p>
<p>2) All the ham APRS radios require classic 4800-baud RS-232
<b>SERIAL</b> NMEA-0183-format GPS data input on a physical
serial port. Not Bluetooth. Not USB. REAL serial only.</p>
<p>3) Cell phones normally don't have classic serial ports. If
there was any way to get GPS data out of a phone or tablet, it
will be in a proprietary binary format via USB or Bluetooth.
(Rather than the plain-text generic NMEA ASCII output all ham
APRS gear requires) Further, Apple "i-Gadgets" without cellular
radios in them (ipods and low-end WiFi-only iPads) have no GPS
receiver in them at all. Not sure about Android non-cellular
tablets.<br>
</p>
<p>4) Since phones and tablets don't normally have serial ports,
it would be very difficult to get any decoded APRS posits out of
the radio's built-in TNCs and into the external device. Assuming
there was even any mapping app on any of these devices that could
plot such data. At the least, you would require some sort of
serial-to-Bluetooth converter. This will cost substantially more
than just buying a GlobalSat BU-355 or u-Blox serial GPS to plug
directly into the radio.<br>
</p>
<p>The only feasable way to use a phone or tablet as a mapping
display for an APRS radio would be to take the received audio on
144.39, from a 6-pin mini-DIN "data port" (actually TX and RX
audio) on the radio. Feed the audio into the external headset
mic-in jack on the phone or tablet. There are dedicated APRS apps
for both iOS and Android that can use the phone or tablet audio
system as a soundcard "soft TNC". In turn, these apps are
dependent on constant access via cellular data to Google Maps for
the map display. This, of course, assumes your mobile device
still has an analog 3.5mm TRRS jack for audio in and out.</p>
<p>There is one car navigator display GPS that can function as an
APRS mapping display for the Kenwood APRS radios or an Opentracker
4 TNC. The AvMap Geosat 6 is a 5" display GPS that can plot
APRS posits heard on a Kenwood APRS radio. It's internal GPS
receiver can talk back to the Kenwood in compatible serial NMEA
format. It's expensive and appears to be discontinued... <br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
<hr width="100%" size="2">
<p>Stephen H. Smith wa8lmf (at) aol.com <br>
Skype: WA8LMF<br>
EchoLink: Node # 14400 [Think bottom of the 2-meter band]<br>
Home Page: <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://wa8lmf.net">http://wa8lmf.net</a><br>
<br>
Live Off-The-Air APRS Activity Maps<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="http://wa8lmf.net/map"><http://wa8lmf.net/map></a><br>
<br>
Long-Range APRS on 30 Meters HF <br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="http://wa8lmf.net/aprs/HF_APRS_Notes.htm"><http://wa8lmf.net/aprs/HF_APRS_Notes.htm></a><br>
<br>
</p>
<p> <br>
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