[Linux-ham] need equipment suggestions

[Wes Hardaker]

>>>>> On Sun, 15 Mar 2009 19:00:57 -0400, Greg Brown <gwbrown1 at gmail.com> said:

GB> If I'm going to go with a vehicle setup I'd like to have, at the very least,
GB> a dual band 2m/70cm radio capable of cross-band repeating.  NOAA weather
GB> would be nice as well.

There are very few cross-band repeaters these days.  A few more if you
look for older ones (like the Kenwood one).  Everyone I've seen these
days has the FT-8800 or FT-8900 from Yaesu.

I think you can accomplish all of your "OR" situations fairly easily
with the cash you want to spend.  If you use a cross-band repeater
you'll get two radios in one.  And if you get a dual-VFO hand-held to go
with it that can do at least 2m/440, then you'll have 4 total ;-) And
can cross band to the hand held when it's normal transmission isn't
great.  Then you just need antennas(s), coax and mounts for the car.
All that can be done for under $1000.

GB> Some kind of software radio interface with a hardware back-end.  It has to
GB> work with OS X and from my searches on the Internet such a beast does not
GB> appear to exist.  For shame.  If it did I could potentially connect via
GB> software over the Internet to my home station.  That would be pretty cool
GB> when traveling.

I actually wrote some scanning software a while back that can drive any
device with a CAT interface on any OS that the hamlib library can run
on.  This *should* include OSX but I haven't tested it there (I'd love
to know if it works).

  http://www.hamtools.org/cq/

Note that the cross banding radios don't have CAT interfaces I don't
think, so my software can't drive them.

(I need to release another version that contains a few changes as well)

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