Communications

[DaveK]

Charlie:

Pactor II will definitely work. It is a bit slower than Pactor III but a big improvement over Pactor I. I believe you can upgrade to Pactor III for about $170. Check out the Farallon website under their upgrades section for Pactor controllers, http://www.farallon.us/webstore/ .

Before you make the purchase, I would check with Gary Woods at Farallon (the tech support guy - VERY helpful and knowledgable) and make sure that the upgrade to III is possible for the unit you want to buy.

[DaveK]

AIRMAIL UPDATE

All of the Airmail equipment and software was connected and running last night. I was able to send and receive emails to and from Hector via the HF Airmail program. Complete success!

There are a great deal more functions that the SCS Pactor modem can perform and next Saturday, we should be able to see the system work, see its other functions, and help anyone else who wants to get it going. Airmail makes it possible to send and receive regular email from virtually any where. The speed of the Pactor III is impressive.

On the first try, I was able to hit an Austin,Texas mail box station (over 1200 miles away) and both send and receive mail. Not bad for 50 watts!

[DaveK]

AIRMAIL AVAILABILITY

The last few bugs have been worked out of the Airmail program. Today I was using mailbox stations in Louisiana , Washington, Oregon, San Diego, and Texas for email connections, (even a Los Angeles contact was made).

If you would like to send and receive regular email while on the trip, I will need your email address so your family or friends will be able to communicate with you. PLEASE NOTE - if you want your email address kept confidential, send it to me via PM. For ease of use, even though attachments can be transmitted, it will slow the process down. Depending on available time, we will be able to send photos back home to be posted on the website. More on this later.

Once I have your email address, I will send you a test message to which you will be able to respond. Once we have success on both ends, you can both send and receive email messages while we are away. It is not necessary for anyone who sends you an email to be a licensed Ham.

[charlie56]

Attached is a spreadsheet file (Open Office but you should be able to open it in Excel) of 2 meter and 70 cm repeaters in the areas we will be near. If anyone has any corrections / additions / or deletions, let me know. This file is formatted for a Yaesu FT-8800. If you need a different format, let me know and I will try and accommodate.

April Trip Repeaters.ods

(11.63 KiB) Downloaded 294 times

3-18-10 Edit
Here is the link to the Google Maps "Like" website with repeater information.
http://k5ehx.net/repeaters/qrepeater.php

[DaveK]

I have prepared APRS maps for our trip which can be used on both AGW and UIView.

The maps from So Cal to Canyon de Chelly are from UI-View PA7RHMsvr map server. The maps of Canyon de Chelly, Monument Valley and Red rock are level 4 maps from NG Topo!.

Post up if you would like any of the maps.

[unwiredadventures]

I have prepared APRS maps for our trip which can be used on both AGW and UIView.

Post up if you would like any of the maps.

Thanks! I'd like them.

[NotAMog]

Dave,

I'd like to get the maps. I'm still not having any luck with AGW but UIView is working.

Bruce

[diverbob]

I have UI-View32 loaded on my laptop, so would like to try
it out. I haven't used it yet may need some help along the way.

Send me the map files and iI will try and figure it out before we leave.

[DaveK]

Bob, Frank and Bruce:

I emailed the maps and related files to each of you. If you have any problems or questions, give me a call.

[toms]

I would like a copy for UI-View