[amsat-bb] Re: Email via Satellite Simulated Emergency Test

[Bruce Robertson]

Quoting Bob Stewart <bob at evoria.net>:

> --- Robert Bruninga <bruninga at usna.edu> wrote:
> 
> > You don't need anything but a 2m radio and a TNC.  No special
> > software.  No special hardware, no satellite predictions, and no
> > time consuming operating.
> 
> Bob can you or anyone tell me if there are software TNCs  for
> soundcards out there?  I know almost nothing about APRS or
> even where to turn to get useful information.  Unfortunately,
> buying a TNC is simply not going to happen at this time.  I am
> a Linux user. 
> 
> Bob - AE6RV

Hey, Bob:

I'm a Linux user, too. You're in luck: the xastir program is one of the
best for APRS, and it runs under X11. Any post Pentium III machine with a
sound card can do the demodulating of 1200 AFSK pretty easily. There is
ax.25 packet built into many kernels as an option, and there are a good
number of possibilities for decoding the audio. So with a bit of Linux
hacking and the cheapest of all 2m ht's, you can have a great APRS station. 

When I last set up a Linux machine to do this, most of the demodulators
were not user-space; in the Windows world, they are. I'm not sure if that's
changing in Linux these days. 

As it happens, I just installed Ubuntu 7.10 on a new machine at work and
noticed the raft of ham radio applications that are available with this
distro. I look forward to the day that phaseIV_beacon_demodulator is among
them!

73, Bruce
VE9QRP