[olug] radio projects

[dutch]

Hey Neal - congrats on your recent acquisitions.  I got my ham license for the 
purpose of doing some APRS experimentation in combination with our RAGBRAI 
team on bike ride across Iowa (every July).

Unfortunately my designs and callsign have languished but your post really 
kicks up the spring fever.  I'm interested in exploring ham / data and hope 
to get something going for this year's ride.

Big picture goal for us is to use our support vehicle (full size school bus 
with deck on top) as the mobile base station tracking bike riders who will 
have APRS devices.  APRS is generally 2m, but not to say that other bands 
can't be used.  For that matter, another or home brew protocol might be 
useful (www.opentrac.org).  Probably hack together some used GPS receivers, 
single board computers and some sort of radio device, driven by Linux / 
xxxxBSD?

Also, I know it's not a grain elevator but I'd volunteer the bus as a mobile 
platform if you want to get out of the city and up high a bit (antennas on 
the deck?).  Have large golf cart battery power bank and inverter inside.  
You can see the bus along with plenty of RAGBRAI foolishness at 
http://www.tconl.com/~dutch.  All contingent on the bus starting after the 
long winter :-)

Dutch