KC2UGV
03-18-2015, 07:58 AM
Well, just got the SainSonic AP510, it's a little 1W, frequency agile APRS transceiver. It has a built in GPS, temp sensor, TNC (Yes, a full blown TNC), and a 2mAh LiPo battery rumored to be good for 2 to 3 days on automatic reporting.
It's a little tricky to get set up, mainly because all the good documentation is in Chinese, and the English support forum is locked up behind a Yahoo! group (Who uses Yahoo! groups anymore).
I've had best luck with Linux + Win7 VM. And, yes, specifically a Windows 7 VM. The USB-Serial drivers are finicky on Windows, but work like a charm on Linux. So, using a VM, you can just set the ttyUSB0 to be COM1 in Windows, and it all works. I've yet to be able to get Chirp daily on Linux to read from the device successfully.
I had high hopes of just getting the firmware updated using Windows, and just using Chirp from thereon, but Chirp doesn't really have much in the way of config for this device. So, bad news: I'll have to keep the Win7 VM around. Good news? Doubtful I'll ever have to reconfigure it, actually.
More good news: This device is based on the AVR64 by Atmel. Which means, I could hypothetically reverse out the hex file, and load an arduino bootloader (Like optiboot), and port it over to an ATTINY or similar board, which could expand the hack possibilities greatly. I wish the author would release the source on his own, but it's China and they just see things differently there sometimes I suppose.
It's a little tricky to get set up, mainly because all the good documentation is in Chinese, and the English support forum is locked up behind a Yahoo! group (Who uses Yahoo! groups anymore).
I've had best luck with Linux + Win7 VM. And, yes, specifically a Windows 7 VM. The USB-Serial drivers are finicky on Windows, but work like a charm on Linux. So, using a VM, you can just set the ttyUSB0 to be COM1 in Windows, and it all works. I've yet to be able to get Chirp daily on Linux to read from the device successfully.
I had high hopes of just getting the firmware updated using Windows, and just using Chirp from thereon, but Chirp doesn't really have much in the way of config for this device. So, bad news: I'll have to keep the Win7 VM around. Good news? Doubtful I'll ever have to reconfigure it, actually.
More good news: This device is based on the AVR64 by Atmel. Which means, I could hypothetically reverse out the hex file, and load an arduino bootloader (Like optiboot), and port it over to an ATTINY or similar board, which could expand the hack possibilities greatly. I wish the author would release the source on his own, but it's China and they just see things differently there sometimes I suppose.