Amateur Radio Packet Project

K

KE4NYV

New member
I have been involved in an ever progressing project called the HamHUD for about 4 years now. I recently built one of our units for demonstation purposes at shows and conferences. The normal display used is a normal sized 4x20 HD44780 based character display such as the white on blue (my personal favorite). For this unit I decided to go with the over-sized 4x20 offered and it turned out great.

A quick over view of what the unit does. In Amateur Radio we have somthing called APRS or Automatic Position Reporting System. Its basically a means of using 1200/9600 baud data "packets" for sending position data, messages and weather data. Normally a computer running APRS software would allow you to display and transmit this data. The problem is a computer can be cumbersome in a mobile situation. Thus the HamHUD II was born as a simple text interface that allows 95% of APRS to done from a vehical. Mapping is the only main function we can't do right now. If you would like to see the main page take a look at HamHUD II SIte

This is what my normal sized HamHUD II looks like (also uses a Crystalfontz LCD) Normal HamHUD II



Here is a link to the pictures of the brand new oversized version I just built Oversized HamHUD II



Hope you guys find this interesting. I thought it was time to share a non-computer application.

Jason
www.ke4nyv.com
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CF Tech

CF Tech

Administrator
Very interesting project. I assume the "Packet Radio" allows data as well as voice to go over normal Ham equipment?
 
K

KE4NYV

New member
Well, in the Amateur Radio world, you have analog voice (old fashioned radio) and digital, which contains packet, Radioteletype (RTTY), PSK (Phase Shift Keying) and several other "modes" of digital communications.

Packet radio is the most common among amateur radio for sending data such as messages, emails and/or position information such as what APRS does. There is a new mode on the horizon of digital voice. Right now, that is in its infancy and very new to the Amateur Radio community. The very few radios available are still pretty pricey.

APRS takes regular 1200 baud packet and uses it as a vehical to carry the position, message and weather data. The actual packet spec wasn't changed. Its not the packet structure it'self, its the data contained in the packet.

Just thought youins would like to see whats being done with your LCD's outside of the case mods geek world :D
 
C

Chromed

New member
Very nice project!
I like how you took the comp out of the picture, but darn it - you got me thinking off in another direction for a project I am presently working on with Honolulu Community College :rolleyes: :D

We are working with CanSats ( Can Satellites), mini satellites that fit in soda cans - they include components for measuring temperature, humidity, acceleration, GPS and wireless transcievers to transmit data to a groundstation. some even include dismantled and hacked digital cams lol!

Anyway, as for you, we find that using even a laptop can be a problem in the field - the CanSat sends data from the sensors via RF to a comp on the ground with a RF module connected to the serial port of the comp.
would be REALLY nice to have a setup like yours to recieve data from the CanSat and view it via a LCD!

Two questions for you if I may?
Does it sound like a setup like yours would possibly work in our project?

Can you point me towards information geared towards the layperson on APRS?

Thanks for sharing your great project!

Aloha
 
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