Tom Mandera's Big Sky Binders

Photos

Aside from a great day, I also put in two new radios in the Scout before this trip.

One is an HF radio (Icom 706), and goes with the big "hamstick" hanging off the top driver's corner in this picture.

I used it to talk to Hawaii and Alaska on "20 meters" (14Mhz) while we were wheelin'. Spain and Cuba didn't hear my weak little signal from my "small" antenna on the Scout.

Kind of interesting and fun.

But the other more practical and interesting-other-wheelers thing I did was install a second 2m VHF radio, along with a small device called an "OpenTracker+". That small $40-ish device was wired into the secondary radio (a 25w radio that I paid $5 for) and the other end hooked to my GPS.

Every 90 seconds it attempted to transmit my speed, heading, temperature, and voltage.

For a while, you can follow along here:

APRS.FI

The data goes away after a few months.

It's important to note that, if you had been at home "watching" you would have seen those locations appear and move along as we made progress (or stay still, as we sat stuck in the snow!)

Real-time updates. Cell coverage was spotty when it was available during the trip to Park Lake, but as you can see 2m APRS did fine, and with the 65w FT-2800 radio for voice, I had good comms into the local repeaters the entire time.

So, if you have your ham license, you can pick up any old 2m VHF radio (even one like mine without a "tone" board), buy an OpenTracker for $40-$50, add an old serial based GPS, and away you go.

ArgentData also sells radio+tracker units combined and various other things, but I've found the 5w output of those trackers to be a bit lacking considering the distances we need to cover.

Interestingly, the thermometer in the tracker indicates the temperature under my dash (where it was stashed, right next to the heater) fluctuated between 80 and 86deg F.

Voltage between 13.4 and 14.5.

Some of the packets went via Boulder, some via MacPass, and some direct to K7MT in East Helena or W7MRI at the end of North Montana (with a nice vantage over the valley)

Michelle was at home watching our progress, and knew when to put the Lasagne in the oven so it was ready when we got home.

-Tom