The VE6SBR APRS Digipeater provides APRS coverage for the greater Edmonton area and is a HUB for outlying digipeaters VE6JY at Lamont and VE6EMU near Camrose. Brian, VE6BCA, provides the internet gateway which connects the digipeater into the worldwide APRS network. Transmit power is 40 watts and identification on the APRS network is EDMNTN. It has been interesting to see how often direct communication is possible between VE6SBR and Calgary digipeaters >200 miles away.

The Digipeater was constructed from a Motorola Micor VHF mobile radio from the basement of Craig, VE6CC and a KPC-3 TNC from Brian, VE6BCA. The 13.8 VDC switching power supply and portions of the rack mounted enclosure was from an old mini-computer system  from Don, VE6DFW. Add some sheet metal; a few screws, washers and nuts, some wire, a few connectors and God only knows how many hours of labor and you have a digipeater. The digipeater shares the same 19" rack mount enclosure as my UHF FM repeater.Total cost for new items purchased was $35 for two crystals.

My first tracker was a MCX100 mobile that operated as a normal transceiver until the connected APRS TNC had position data to transmit. The radio would then, regardless of whether it was receiving or transmitting, automatically switch to the APRS channel, transmit the APRS data, and return to the channel it was previously on. The brief reception or transmission interruption was hardly noticeable.