planetkris

Sit back, relax, and enjoy the crash…

This install has been on the drawing board for a couple of months. The requirements for getting this equipment into the car were strict.
#1. The car may only have ONE (visible) antenna.
#2. A clean, integrated install, with hidden wiring and functionality.
#3. The equipment must not get in the way of the operation of the vehicle. Most importantly airbags. This includes magic (folding) seats and dashboard controls.

First up, the radio. The choices were narrowed down to two. The Yaesu 8800 and the Kenwood TM-V71A. I got a chance to test out one of the Yaesu sibling radios - the 7800 at a rally last month. The audio was great, the transmitter worked flawlessly as expected. The menu options and programming were similar to most radios, so I was able to figure it out waiting for rally cars to show up. At the event I was also able to test out the 8800. Two of them were in use at the rally and both operators gave glowing reviews of the rig. Only one feature frustrated me. The ability to quickly lock the display. Instead of a single key press… The lock function is buried under a menu setting for both the 7800 AND 8800. Later in the week I swung by the local HRO and got a good 30 minutes of sit down, hands-on time, with the Kenwood TM-V71A. Why did I buy it? 1 touch lock. The ability to change to a green display was a bonus. The stock Kenwood remote kit was all that was needed here. It’s just out of the way and just high enough to see it while driving. Out of the sun and away from airbags, this worked out great!

My $4.43 antenna: I first scoured the web looking for euro, stinger, stealth amateur radio antennas. Something that would replace my existing antenna, something that would still receive FM, make toast, and be cheap. $245 is not cheap. Sure it radiates on 2 meters, probably deaf on 440 and needs a box of coils and chokes to get decent FM coverage. The KISS moment came when I just stopped trying to use 1 antenna for 5 radios. Do something else for FM - a hidden glass mount or “other.” Then use a dual band radio on a tuned vertical using the stock base. Use ONE radio for mobile and APRS duties. I too dislike that one side of the radio is dedicated to APRS, but this I think is better then a 5 watt handi-talkie in a TrackerBox hooked to a duplexer (this allows the use of 1 antenna) that will de-sense a $360 radio with $80 worth of eBay gear.

So… 10mm screw + solder + 20″ of solid copper wire + tubing + heat shrink = $4.43
A tuning session got the antenna down to 1.3:1 SWR on the 2 meter bands (VHF) and 1.5:1 SWR on 70cm (UHF). Total length is now around 16″ - looking at the math, I’m sure the base has something to do with the total height. Basically a vertical that is a 1/4 wave VHF and a 3/4 wave UHF. I call it: The KM-443 Vertical You know I will say that on signal reports if asked.

Hacking the existing FM antenna: In order to get the headliner open enough to get access to the antenna, pretty much all of the plastic interior panels in the rear of the Honda Fit needed to be removed. Christine was thankfully patient and refrained from freaking out on the fact that I had just taken apart the inside of our 11 month old car. Once in my hand, I saw how the amplified antenna works. Power and a tiny coax cable travel to a circuit board that is shielded, grounded, and sent up the center conductor of the mount. Relocating this inside the vehicle was worth a shot and I soldered on an RCA coupling to make this easy. Extra RCA cables are always around the house, right? A wire about the length of the stock FM antenna was soldered to the center conductor and tested. Reception is decent, and the base was ground to the inside of the chassis, with the new antenna wire traveling up the inside of the plastic window frame. Will this be good for rural areas? Probably not, but LA radio stations sound great, and satellite radio is for everything else.

What I had left was a 10mm bolt center post and a good ground. A small section of PVC was used as an insulated spacer to replace the missing stock antenna. A donated piece of good coax was attached with ring terminals.

Cable runs: The following has been run from the front to the rear of the Fit.
* 10 awg fused battery power cable.
* Remote accessory power relay wire.
* Kenwood remote head unit cable.
* CAT5 cable with serial data to/from TNC and switched power.
* Satellite radio antenna wire.
* Speaker audio.
* CAT5 cable used for Kenwood microphone.

This allows everything in the back to be turned on and controlled by the driver. The TNC can be switched off if I want to use both sides of the radio, or I want to stop beaconing my position. The radio comes on and goes off with the car. A bypass switch was installed in the rear panel should I want to have the radio on without the keys in the ignition. If you’re going through all the hassle, why not add a accessory power connector and power pole port in the back for charging, extra radios, etc.

The center console: This is a Honda Fit, not a Chevy Tahoe. So the microphone connector had to be tested to work with the magic folding seats. I was about to mount the speaker off the back of the console when I realized that it would interfere. Christine suggested that if I take off the bracket, it might fit. Well, it fits perfect! If you turn the mic on its side it seems to be happy in the pocket next to the handbrake, or in the rear cup holder.

A great setup for APRS duties is the Garmin Nuvi 350 and an Argent Data Systems Tracker2. I want to give a shout out to Mike Wren N2QDK for his APRS mobile install. After reading this I knew I had found what I was looking for. I drew a lot of inspiration from his install, and I’m loving my Garmin Nuvi APRS setup!

Finishing up: With just a little compromise, I got what I was looking for. My mobile setup can do everything from cross band repeat, to tactical APRS tracking, and yet from the outside it looks just like any other Honda Fit with a GPS on the dash. I’ll be APRS tracking more frequently and I can’t wait to volunteer at a rally with it!

Kenwood is pro APRS. Something must have been lost in the translation when the marketing guys wrote up the specs for the TM-V71A. It lists APRS, and then to the right it says: NO.

What does that mean? It certainly can transmit and receive on 144.390. So, it doesn’t have a built in TNC like its older brother the 710. So? It’s certainly an APRS capable radio. It even has the industry standard 6-pin mini din ready for packet data on the back of the rig. The TM-V71A is great for APRS duties.

Something tells me that the marketing department wants you to steer over to the RC-D710. It’s a ready to go TNC with all sorts of options that make your V71A ‘feel’ like you spent the big bucks. Well, the small bucks are okay with me. Matter of fact, with this unit connected to an Argent Tracker2 and a Garmin Nuvi 350 - it’s about $1500 worth of kit for about $600. Stay tuned as I install it over the next few weeks.

First challenge: Getting the radio to talk to your TNC (tracker).
I guess I could blame those marketing guys again, but I don’t know who messed up the verbiage in the manual on the pin-outs for the DATA jack. I opened up the manual and flipped to the section on packet operation. Easy enough, I just have to provide audio in/out, PTT and ground. Wait… What pin is PTT?

1 PKD input, 2 DE, 3 PKS input, 4 PR9 output, 5 PR1 output, 6 SQC output
Seriously Kenwood? Where did these abbreviations come from?

The description is just as confusing. For pin 3: ‘L’ is transmitted and the microphone is muted. The letter L? The low? What?!
Does that give one any indication that pin 3 is the PTT? Leading to the confusion is the ability to set the “baud rate” for the radio. (Please take note the quotes…) This had me questioning if there actually was a TNC in the radio and whether to pass audio data or digital data to the unit.
Panicked, I called Brian NJ6N for some help. He chuckled at the descriptions and pointed me to buxcomm.com where a handy reference sheet tells us the following.

1 DATA IN, 2 GND, 3 PTTP, 4 DATA OUT, 5 AF OUT, 6 SQ
Now that’s more like it. Brian also explained that the baud rate has to do with the filtering the unit is doing. For very high data rates it skips some of the internal circuitry that could lead to some issues with received packets. For our purposes, APRS is 1200 baud and the default settings will be fine.

Cable time: Because I’m super impatient, I scrounged the house looking for a 6-pin mini din connector. “Hey, that PS/2 keyboard / mouse connector looks like it could do the trick!” Before you could say “e-waste” I had the end off a PS/2 keyboard on the desk hooked to an ohm meter. Bad news - They don’t use pin 2, and they don’t even bother to leave an un-used wire in there. Don’t bother tearing open the mouse - it also doesn’t utilize pin 2 at all. Thinking that this is the end of my experiments I slice the connector open and take a closer look. Pin 2 is there and, sure enough, nothing is connected to it. After digging a channel with a sharp knife I find there is enough there to solder. The elegant solution I came up with is to ground the pin to the outer shield and use that for pin 2 ground. A little heat shrink and we’re back in business. For those of you with patience, it looks like this cable from Byonics should do the trick.

Using the Tracker2 manual I came up with the following pin configuration:
Argent Tracker2 >>> Kenwood TM-V71A
DB9 >>> 6-pin mini
1 audio out >>> 1 data in
2 squelch input >>> 6 squelch out
3 ptt >>> 3 ptt
5 audio in >>> 5 af out
6 ground >>> 2 ground

Plugged in and ready to go: I turned on the radio and tuned to 144.390. I specified in the menu which side my packet operations would be on. My Tracker2 blinked to confirm it was hearing packets! A quick test and I was able to send a message to K6SOA-9. Receive and transmit both work. Now, one side of the radio will be dedicated to APRS, but this is no different then the D700. A remote switch is in the works to allow me to turn off the tracker and regain the use of both A and B sides, should I need a cross-band repeat or dual receive.

Next time I’ll be detailing the entire install. From hacking the existing FM antenna mount, to Garmin Nuvi 350 APRS messaging. I even tackle getting the Honda Fit amplified antenna working inside the car. As you can see I’ve added a 12v cig jack and Anderson power pole panel. Stay tuned!

What worked great?

1. Printing. Ubuntu found my HP 920c and made it my default printer right out of the box. It was a mere checkbox to get it shared on the network. My Windows XP machine had no issues with it. “Holy Shit!” was all I said when it took 10 seconds to get printing set. The .pdf maker support that comes with Ubuntu was especially helpful when publishing documents for our rally.

2. Firefox. Still loving that decision after 8 years.

3. VirtualBox. I knew I would miss XP a little. *tear. It is a good stable OS that MS will force all of us to move away from because they need money for the next “new” thing. I setup VirtualBox and it works great. I am running XP SP2 (inside VBox) with only a handful of small issues. When I updated, I had to rebuild VBox following this fix. I take snapshots before installing any major software or changes and that has saved my ass twice. The apps I can’t live without right now are running great: Photoshop, Macromedia Flash. I also run MS Office. (Still trying to get used to OpenOffice.)

4. Wine + USB to Serial. This was the unbelievable success I spoke of, let me set the scene. I have a year old USB to Serial converter that I bought for $20. No manual, no drivers, it’s made in China and I have NO idea what the chipset is. Will it run in Linux? Doubt it. I didn’t want to bog down the Mini with VirtualBox, so I loaded Wine. Wine is a windows emulator for individual programs. The application I want to run is an APRS tracker programmer with no linux version. To recap: Emulated windows application running inside Ubuntu Linux with Wine - connected to a USB to serial converter made in China - hooked to a serial device powered by a robot battery. I created a sym link called COM1 that pointed to /dev/ttyUSB0 in the Wine directory. Started it up - reset the Tracker and “WoAH!” I actually jumped out of my chair because it just works.

What kinda worked?

1. MP3 players. Finally settled on XMMS. I tried ‘Listen’ (on my Xubuntu Desktop) and ‘Rhythmbox’ (on my Dell Mini 9). Listen is pretty good, the controls and layout are good, the internet radio station setup was a little too complex. Its biggest problem really is that it’s called ‘Listen’. It’s practically impossible to search for help on a music player using the search string ‘Listen’. Rhythmbox seems to do all right, it does seem to do a little too much disk IO and was a total CPU hog on the Mini. I tried Amarok, which I heard was good, but it had issues with my desktop sound card. I could do without all the fancy indexing and lyric and album cover features. I am NOT an iTunes person. I’m used to a plain-jane ‘winamp’. Installing XMMS was fairly easy for me. Editing your sources.list and updating apt-get seems to be standard Linux stuff to me now, so Your Mileage May Vary.

2. Bluetooth. I got the option with the Mini and ran out and picked up an expensive Bluetooth Mouse which worked great - until I restarted. The mouse seems to work about 70% of the time. The other % I spend 2 minutes muttering while I re-acquire the device by deleting it and re-adding it. The script to get it to auto connect is in progress at: Ubuntu Forum Bluetooth Mouse Thread

3. Dual monitor support. I originally chose Xubuntu (with Xfce) for the desktop, but got Ubuntu working with dual monitors. The Mini saw an external monitor only after a log-off log-on and the ‘monitor key’ on the Dell does zero. Well it does make the external display flicker like it totally was going to do something…

What was a pain?

1. Networking. First, the absolute bullshit update for the Mini: Ubuntu 8.10 Kernel Update Has Broken Wired Connection. Seriously? You just broke my ethernet connection with a kernel update? This is no good Ubuntu… This is not making open source OS’s shine. “Oops - at least you still have wireless.” On the desktop I had a little issue with a NAT connection on my VirtualBox. Make sure VBox gets its own IP from the router. You’ll avoid weird Windows Networking issues when both your Linux machine and the VBox machine are connected to the same share. Figuring that out was certainly a pain.

2. Updates. Did you see that coming? I did… One of the biggest pet peeves I have with MicroSquash is: “Important Security Update - This update fixes a problem where an attacker can take over your machine.” I’d certainly believe that if not every single update from MS said this. Seriously? Your OS is so vulnerable to attack you need 20+ security patches every month? Nope, I don’t believe it. So my standard practice now is to stop the Automatic Update and Security Center services after loading SP2. Go to services.msc and disable them - forever… XP is “end of life” anyway. Plus they like to slip in “Genuine Software Checks” in those automatic updates. I have seen 2 of my customers PC’s rendered useless, even though they were running an valid XP key.

Sorry about the MS rant, let’s get back to Ubuntu. The update manager is also pretty pervasive in Ubuntu. I found the following settings to be a good safe bet. There is more information on updates and kernel updates, but you still need to watch this like a hawk and presume that after an update your machine may have issues. I also discovered that a full shutdown and restart solved problems on my Dell Mini after an update.

What is still brox0red? What have I yet to try?

1. CD / DVD Burning. I am embarrassed to say that as of right now, I can’t burn a CD in my home. I guess I can buy Nero for Linux… At least I will get pay-for support. I get an IO error in the logs and a Power something Check FAILED. I’ve tried Brasero and K3B - no dice. I can’t play DVD’s on my system, so I think it may be time to retire my old Sony drive for more Linux friendly hardware.

2. Video Editing. I have downloaded about 3 non-linear video editing apps, and I’m in the process of getting them to work. If Ubuntu can do this for me - there will be no going back to Microsoft.

The wrap: Ubuntu is running steady on my desktop and my Dell Mini. The occasional bumps in the road are probably no worse then if I went over to Vista. I have since upgraded the Mini to Jaunty 9.04 and have had better success with bluetooth, the system seems to boot faster, and my wired ethernet works again! I have been getting back into the swing of linux and Ubuntu has made it great!