Batboard

I have been toying around with ideas for tracking our SAR teams in the field. Our search areas are typically pretty small, mile or two square normally. I have been looking at ham radio APRS as a solution when it occurred to me that I have a cache of XPR6550 portables with GPS receivers in them already.

Is it possible to do GPS tracking on a trbo simplex frequency without using a repeater, assuming the radios are close enough range wise, etc. Is it a matter of setting up a base radio, connecting it to a computer running some sort of software, and putting the whole mess on some a simplex frequency? (licensed of course)

Any recommendations on software for the mapping part if it is possible?

Are their any software solutions that will also play nicely with other manufacturers? We have Motorola radios, but our neighboring team that works with us a lot has Vertex VXD-720 radios. (not sure the VXD-720 have GPS receivers in them anyhow)

Thanks!

There should be no problem using a simplex frequency and yes you would simply setup a base radio connected to a computer to receive the gps data. A very simple to use program is the Streettrek mapping and they provide some examples of codeplugs to help you get them setup properly. Another good thing about Streettrek is that you can get a copy of their software and it will work fully functional for 30 days to do a trial run to see if you like it or not.

I don't know if it will play nicely or at all with the Vertex version of the radios.

Streettrek software is sold in license groups of 25 units.

I'll look into that software. Thanks for the info!

Researching into it tonight, it does not look like the vertex radios have the GPS receivers in them, so that solves that problem.

Another option that may work if you have a control station radio you can commit to this as well as a laptop with internet access is the TRBO-NET APRS gateway the Michigan guys put together. I played with it locally for a while on both simplex and through IPSC. This would allow simultaneous voice and data and if you had users that still used plain ol APRS it would all show up.

It just requires a little tinkering to get setup but once you get there it runs pretty flawless, a perk of this over commercial products would be that it is free, and it integrates with the APRS infrastructure.