[aprssig] Mobile Packet Range

[Joseph M. Durnal]

On 9/18/07, Dave Baxter <dave at emv.co.uk> wrote:
...
> For many "Ham's", "Black box" use is all they are (a)licenced to do, or
> (b)are capable of.  Unlike you and me, they just do not want to know
> what goes on under the hood, they just want to get on air and use it.
> If they are happy pay the vendors to do that, then so be it.   Over hear
> they are know as appliance opereators.  Sad, but true.

Sad, but true.  I keep hearing this sort of thing repeated over and
over.  Sometimes I think that if I just learned about ham radio today,
that I wouldn't be as interested as I was back in 93 when I was first
licensed.  I'm certainly no old timer, but even back then it seems
like most hams built at least something in their shack.  My 1st
project was a line noise filter on a 1 amp wall wart power supply, 2nd
was rebuilding an old power supply so I could run the radio at high
power, then the 2 element yagi so I could talk simplex to some folks
that I normally talked to on the repeater.  Fast forward a bunch of
years to my first APRS station (I sure wish I would have known about
APRS back in 93).  I picked up an old radio shack 2 meter mobile with
a damaged speaker and no mic for $40, and MFJ TNC for $28, bought a
few connectors to make a cable and I was on the air.  I've updated it
a bit, the rig is now a Yaesu FT-8800R, but I'm still using that same
MFJ TNC, but I had to make a new cable.  I replaced the speaker and
scored a free mic for the radio shack rig and sold it to a new ham for
$40.

I'm no EE, I don't work on electronics for a living or anything, never
had any formal electronics education.  I'm just a regular guy, if I
can do this sort of thing, anyone can.  I don't forsee ever having a
shack without something that I made myself, in the past, that seemed
like the norm, but these days, maybe not.

73 de Joe NE3R