I’ve had some conversations with other hams recently, and decided that now is the time to get fully involved in APRS. On Sunday evening I ordered a new Yaesu FT-2800 2m radio as well as the TNC-X kit with the USB option. The TNC-X comes as a kit which you assemble, though you can also purchase an assembled and tested unit from John. Since I used to love building electronics kits from Heathkit “back in the day,” I decided I’d save the cash and put it together myself. The radio should arrive tomorrow, and the TNC-X is sitting on my desk at work right now – I’m debating taking up some space in one of the labs downstairs to start putting it together tonight :>
Once assembled, and combined with the radio and an old magmount antenna I already have, I hope to have a full time APRS station running at home. Which will be nice, since right now half of my TS-2000 is being used for APRS, so not only can I free that up for other uses but I can shut it off at night when I’m done with it. Probably sometime in the spring I’ll look at either getting a better antenna for APRS, or just a better mount for the antenna I already have (the magmount will have to come off of the grill some time…)