VE6AB Technical
Tri-Mode Operations
One of my favorite natural habitats in Calgary is the Inglewood Bird Sanctuary, but unfortunately due to the 2013 floods that hit southern Alberta, the IBS had been closed for the past 2 years while the sanctuary was being rebuilt.
Well its closed no more as it reopened this past month, and I was pleased to make my first visit in 2 years.
The IBS is a great place to photograph migrating song birds at this time of the year, and being a bit of a bird watcher, or actually the fact that I enjoy photographing birds, I stopped in for a visit to see what was happening.
While I was checking out the birding activity, I had my Kenwoof D72 with me that I had set up for tri-mode operations.
Before leaving my mobile in the IBS parking lot, I had set the Kenwood TM-D710A mounted in the radio stack of my mobile in cross band mode, and I had my weather station ABWX that is mounted in the cargo bay of my mobile doing double duty as a weather station for the Inglewood Bird Sanctuary, and also set up for digipeating the packets sent from my Kenwood D72 via the Argent Cable OT3m device that is paired with my ADS-WS1 weather station electronics module, and connected to a Yaesu VX-170 transceiver.
http://www.jerryclement.ca/HamRadio/HamRadio/i-H7dQRX8/0/XL/1-2014-07-206-XL.jpg
Once I headed out on my walkabout of the IBS, my D72 allowed me to lay the above APRS track being digipeated by my VE6AB-8 weather station of the trails that I followed while visiting the IBS.
I also responded to several voice contacts while crossbanding through my TM-D710A mounted in the radio stack of my mobile.
On the weather side of things, one of the very nice features of both the Kenwood TM-D710A and the Kenwood D72 is the fact that they both decode APRS weather packets and make these weather events available on their respective screens through the use of weather Icons that display the parameters for rain, temperature, wind direction, wind speed, barometric pressure, and humidity as seen in the insert photo above.
So anytime that I have my ABWX weather station activated that is mounted in the cargo bay of my mobile and forcasting the weather, I am receiving this weather report via my Kenwood D710 or on this day my D72 that I am holding in the insert photo above.
The benefit of have a weather station mounted in my mobile, is the fact that I take my weather station with me no matter where I travel, and once I exit my mobile and hit the trail, I have access to the latest weather information for my specific location via my D72 that is riding attached to my pack.
The weather packets from my VE6AB-8 weather station are also being placed on aprs.fi as well for those who may need to know what's happening weather wise in the area of my mobile weather station.
Now if I am in a location where I don't have any kind of access to the FM VHF APRS network, no problem as my mobile weather station/digipeater is now my APRS network and is keeping me informed whether while I am on the trail with my D72 or possibly my "APRS In Your Pocket" station as seen and described here.....
http://www.jerryclement.ca/HamRadio/VE6AB-Technical/i-mKHhvfC
Like the title says - 3 In One - APRS - Weather - Crossbanding.....
http://ve6ab.blogspot.ca/2015/10/emergency-preparedness-and-cross-band.html
Click on the photo for a closer look.....
