On Tue, 26 Jun 2007, Jason Winningham wrote: > > On Jun 25, 2007, at 7:25 PM, Jim Tolbert wrote: > > > Garmin Rinos within 5 miles of the search incident command would be > > a workable alternative. > > This seems pretty optimistic. I don't know about the Rinos, but in > my very limited experience with FRS radios 5mi seems to be a bit much > for them, unless one is on a mountain and has a straight shot to the > other. I would think that the data range would be even less than the > voice range.
Depends on whether he's using the FRS Rinos or the GMRS Rinos. Garmin got permission to do the positioning data using the higher-power of the GMRS radios for those RINOS that have GMRS. For older GMRS-Rinos, one can do a firmware upgrade from Garmin to get the higher-powered positioning. Before that, the positioning was done at FRS power levels whether you had a GMRS Rino or not. If you want the maximum range using the Rinos, you'll need the GMRS-capable units plus a GMRS license ($75 or $80) first. As far as Xastir is concerned, it needs a Rino at it's end in order to receive from the other Rino's and to poll the other Rino's periodically for their position. You attach this Rino with a serial cable to Xastir. I'd suggest if you're doing this at search base that you remote a Rino at the top of a tall pole and run a long serial cable down into the comm vehicle to Xastir. In order to poll the other Rino units and get your maximum range out of it you'd want a GMRS-Rino at base as well. Earlier I suggested using the cheapest possible Rino at base as the receiver/polling unit, but now with the higher power output you'd want GMRS units all around if the licensing issue is not a biggie. FWIW: I'm in SAR, although not real active on missions at the moment. My current goal is to get Tracker2's out into the field, which will allow digipeating between units, plotting positions on the local GPS map screen, creating objects in the field that appear on everyone's screen, and creating objects at base that also appear on everyone's map screen. This requires a handheld GPS for each field team with a serial NMEA output/input, a Tracker2 TNC, a 2-meter handheld radio, and a battery to run the Tracker2. If this is all built into one unit (except for a cable coming out to go to the field unit's GPS), it can be carried in a pack nicely and mostly forgotten about. The entire user interface would be in the GPS device. This setup allows you to carry the APRS infrastructure with you into the field in the form of preemptive SARn-N digipeaters. Just change your outgoing path on each device to "WIDE1-1,WIDE2-1,SAR7-7", set up the Tracker2's to preemptively digipeat on SARn-N, and you're in business. I have a writeup about this on a web page if you're interested in reading more. Anyway, that's the direction I wish to head, once I get more money, time, and the Tracker2's get into production. Hopefully surface mount tracker2's for size/weight considerations. -- Curt, WE7U. APRS Client Comparisons: http://www.eskimo.com/~archer "Lotto: A tax on people who are bad at math." -- unknown "Windows: Microsoft's tax on computer illiterates." -- WE7U "The world DOES revolve around me: I picked the coordinate system!" _______________________________________________ Xastir mailing list [email protected] http://lists.xastir.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/xastir
