[aprssig] APRS for a motorcycle - radios?

[William McKeehan]

I took a metal box. Drilled a few holes in it (Antenna, GPS Antenna, Power)
and put the goodies inside (GPS, TinyTrak3, HT). I used BNC bulkhead adapters
to go into the holes for the antennas. The metal box made a good groundplane
for a 1/4 wave BNC style antenna.

I simply strapped the box to the luggage rack on the trunk with a couple of
bungie cords. Turned out that the bungie cord idea was a bad idea; I hit a big
bump in the road one day and everything went flying. The box did a good job of
protecting the contents, but the box was toast.

Some pictures of the box after the crash are available here:
  http://mckeehan.homeip.net/aprs_box.htm

The GPS antenna came out of the side while the 1/4 wave antenna attached to
the top.

I'm in the process of doing it all again with a mobile radio and a military
surplus ammo can.

On Wed, February 15, 2006 8:09 am, Mark Cheavens said:
> I built a tracker for my motorcycle (DRZ-400 Dual Sport) out of a old
> Kenwood HT that had a bad battery pack. I put the TinyTrak inside the
> battery case and as I usually do, reversed the LED on the board and
> drilled holes to the outside of the case so the LED's are visible.
> The whole package is very small and works well. The single biggest
> improvement would be using a REAL antenna over the short rubber duck.
> I have not figured out a good antenna solution for the motorcycle
> yet! (suggestions welcome).
>
> If anyone is interested I could take photos of the package and put
> them on my web site.
>
> Mark
> KC5EVE

-- 
William McKeehan
KI4HDU
Internet: mckeehan at mckeehan.homeip.net
http://mckeehan.homeip.net