MB7UBN - APRS Igate for Bolton and north Manchester
MB7UBN - APRS Igate for Bolton and north Manchester
I run an internet gateway or Igate for the worldwide amateur radio APRS (Automatic Position Reporting System) network to provide coverage for the Bolton and north Manchester area.
APRS is an international network of amateur radio stations providing real-time GPS based vehicle or event position reporting, weather reporting and simple message handling for educational, experimental or emergency use. APRS uses a common radio frequency of 144.800 MHz throughout Europe. An internet gateway provides a two-way port to the internet so that stations local to the gateway can be seen by others via the internet using APRS viewing programs such as Xastir or UI-View. The Bolton Igate MB7UBN is widely used by members of the local RAYNET amateur radio emergency communications group.
The APRS internet gateway MB7UBN moved location to our new location in Farnworth, Bolton in May 2007. The new location is a far better location for VHF propagation than the old one in central Bolton and the Igate now offers line of sight coverage to Bolton, Manchester and Warrington.
A selection of older "obsolete" equipment have been used to build the gateway and this web page has been written to encourage other radio amateurs to build similar APRS Igates.
The radio transceiver used is a Simoco PRM80. This has been set up on 144.800 MHz and provides about 16 Watts of RF power at the antenna, a Sharmans X-200 colinear omni-directional antenna. A Kantronics KPC-3 TNC unit sourced via eBay is used to interface the radio transceiver to the computer, a Panasonic CF-25 Toughbook PC (166 MHz Pentium 2 with 128 MB RAM) with Wi-fi access over our office network to a broadband internet connection over the Virgin cable network.
In May 2007 the Igate computer was changed to a Panasonic Toughbook CF-25 Mk 3 using UI-View running on Windows 2000. This allowed the Igate to be set up as a full digipeater as well as an Igate. This was to provide an additional service to local Greater Manchester RAYNET members. The digipeater was set to repeat on RELAY, RAYNET, TRACE and WIDE so that packets from any APRS setup could be digipeated for emergency traffic even if it didn't meet the latest European APRS specification.
The igate is set up up igate messages to and from UK stations from the APRS-IS internet network out on air. This allows local radio amateurs to have two way APRS messaging
Recently an application was made to try to get a modification to the MB7UBN Igate Notice of Variation to run HF APRS over digimodes on 7.0497 MHz using APRS Messenger. As part of the application I was asked if I could reduce the power transmitted on 144.800 MHz from 25 Watts ERP as there are now more stations igating in the north west of England than there used to be when I started. I ran tests and now run the Igate at 1 Watt ERP as this power level is enough to reach the other Igates and digipeaters in the local area if my internet connection fails. I notice that this has significantly improved reception of mobile stations by the other Igates as the mobiles can now be heard over the lower level MB7UBN transmissions.
The callsign MB7UBN has been issued by Ofcom as a Notice of Variation for unattended 24 hour operation on the amateur radio callsign G4HYG held by Chris Moulding. Contact Chris via info@no_spam_crosscountrywireless.net for more details.
Click here to see where Chris is using APRS on 144.800 or 145.825 MHz!
Click here to see where Chris is using HF APRS!
Click here to view recent APRS users of the MB7UBN Igate.
APRS is a trademark of Bob Bruninga, amateur radio callsign WB4APR. Click here to view Bob's website.
