Gavin's Radio Control Development Pages
Above you can see the new Mark II Radio Control I have been developing. The latest variant is based on alternative hardware to my original experiments which reduces the cost yet further. You can clearly see a standard stake and kite and mounted on the stake a BSM Sport Ident Unit. The cable from the SI unit goes to the SI input of the modem which is housed in the white plastic box; another wire then goes from the box to the radio transceiver.
Building the control hardware
To date I have tried to avoid having to create custom hardware and have successfully modified PICPACs and TNC-X kits by replacing their firmware with my own and where necessary making modifications to the circuits. Here you can see me building a TNC-X board from it's kit. You can do this yourself... just contact http://www.tnc-x.com.
The assembled board is then mounted in a plastic box with two DB-9 connectos. One goes to the SI Unit whereas the other goes to a wire connected to the radio. Choice of radio is up to you and is dependent on the licencing in your area. In my pictures you can see a Yaesu VX-5R transceiver for which I hold the necessary licences. (73 from M0ETA). Cheap radio alternatives may be available but the use of data on some frequencies is prohibited in parts of the world and not in others.
Old Experiments
I still use the PICPAC based hardware for my base station as it has a nice display for showing the punches when they arrtive; follow the link below to have a look at the original experiments.
Link to ... PixiePAC Protyping
Close ups and Sequence Shots of PixiePAC version...
Recent Events - Reigate SENile
More info... contact Gavin at RadioTiming
PixiePac and SI-X is developed by Gavin Andrews of South London Orienteers and Wayfarers (www.sloweb.org.uk) in England, UK