Xenotropic Systems

It looks like the cash flow just won’t be enough to do the permanent on-bike APRS setup with the stuff from Byonics, so I’ll have to use my venerable Kenwood TH-D7A and Garmin GPS III. They worked well enough last time, except that I had to run the GPS on battery power. I remedied that last year before my trip to Massachusetts when I bought a cable that had both serial data and a 12V cigarette lighter on it. I think what I’ll do is construct something that hooks up to the fuse block and comes out between the seat and the tank. I can put a little quick release on it, and have a 3-socket cigarette lighter connector that will sit in my tank bag. I think this will work out okay and provide tracking on the trip. Unfortunately, the TH-D7A is only 6W vs. the 10W from the Byonics unit.

I’ll have to pick up a 12V cigarette adapter for the TH-D7A (PG-3J) because my original one was destroyed on the trip in 2005. I left it unplugged for a while, and the cord fell into the chain and got shredded. It should be relatively cheap through Ham Radio Outlet.

I already tested the setup, and it seems as if people are receiving me. You can check out the current location at http://www.findu.com/cgi-bin/find.cgi?call=NH6Z-10.