[aprssig] APRS In A Car

[Ron Wenig]

Hi Everyone,

I see the notes about LCD in a car and had to share my
experience.  I still don't know how this happened.  Maybe
someone else had this problem, it was a scary experience.

My set up was a laptop with a port replicator, the new
laptop I have does not have a serial port.  A GPS 12XL into
a D700 Radio.  The laptop was connected to the D700 with a
normal serial cable with a db9 connector.  The gps was
connected to the D700 with the thin cable that came with the
radio into the 2mm stereo audio type connector.  I was
running UIView.  I normally don't run a laptop in the truck
but I had a passenger and wanted to show him how I could
track with the moving maps.  We were trying to figure out
why it wasn't tracking and the gps wasn't sending any
positions.  We finally gave up trying to figure it out when
I saw smoke coming from the wires on the floor.  I pulled
over and discovered that the serial cable from the computer
was hot to the touch with the insulation at the d700
connection melted and the label on the cable blackended.  I
imagine if it was left unattended it would have caught fire.
I don't think there was a short.  No fuses blew and when I
got home everything seemed to work.  This really has me
concerned and alerted me to the fact that you can not only
have trouble with power connectors that have high power
running through them but also low power signal cables.  Does
anyone have any ideas.

73, Ron ny3j at comcast.net