My trailer arrived. it looks really nice. Solid and sturdy, despite it’s tiny 16-inch wheels.
I’ve been wracking my brain trying to get up to speed on the fancy-schmancy radio I picked up. I’ve played with packet radio in the past quite a bit and it’s all coming back. I hooked up some old gear I still have to experiment, but it’s not a lot of help. APRS is quite different than simple packet and the method of operation, while looking similar, is also different. Packet is a point-to-point connection, even with relays in the middle, while APRS is connectionless. The information just bounces around and hopefully everyone hears what they need one time or the next. If you’re familiar with TCP/IP networking, it’s like the difference between TCP and UDP protocols. But at only 1200 baud!
But as a voice radio, it’s pretty standard and will always be useful that way as well. It even has a weather alert function, which I found out when it went off in the middle of one of our Robotics meetings due to a snow storm advisory! I didn’t know how to turn it off at first. Continue Reading…