APRS map from my #BicycleMobile operations this morning on the Lakelands Trail State Park starting at Stockbridge, MI. This is using #APRSDroid to send spots.

Bicycle mobile operations on a day off (Juneteenth). Rode the Stockbridge to Gregory (Michigan) section of the Lakelands Trail State Park, with my Openspot 4 and Radioddity GD77 radio tuned to Brandmeister #DMR TG 3126 (Michigan).

QSO with Stan #WB8QJZ who is in the Keweenaw Peninsula, and also a nice conversation with another bicyclist who had also stopped in Gregory about bike trails in Florida.

The trail is very flat - it's an old railroad grade converted to a rail trail.

#BicycleMobile

Finally cycled more than 100m for a long time! To the village shop and back which took about 20 minutes, with the FT-65 in the saddlebag scanning. Heard a couple of repeaters announcing but no one on the air.

#BicycleMobile

@n2rj

parking structures on the air (#PSOTA). drive or take the elevator to the top of the ramp, point your antenna far away, see what you can get!

amazing how few milliwatts on an HT you need to hit a 2 meter repeater when it's actually line of sight, even if it's completely unreachable on the same rig from ground level at the same location.

also planning more #BicycleMobile operations, still need to sort out a reasonable battery + antenna + rig for that but I have the bike ready to go.

Looking at doing #APRS #BicycleMobile, through some kind of interface to one of the radios I already own. I have #APRSDroid for my Android phone.

Two options:

A friend from the ARROW club has a rather well used #Mobilinkd Bluetooth #TNC. (It needs a few parts and maybe a repair, but I think I can make it work.)

I see on Amazon and AliExpress an APRS-K1 cable, which would handle getting audio levels right to plug into the audio jack on an Android phone and the K plug for my HT.

( #APRSK1 )

Kicking myself a little bit for not packing my Kenwood TH-22AT HT on this bike trip. I need to sit down with the programming manual and make sure the various channels are set up correctly in it, the user interface was somewhat inscrutable at first go.

I do like the Kenwood for simplex operations, since you can very easily twist a knob to go between channels. In comparison the GD-77 is not frequency agile at all for analog, and doesn't even let you open up the squelch.

#BicycleMobile

Took my bicycle out for a ride on the Border to Border Trail, which heads down Mill Creek from Dexter MI (EN82bi) to the Hudson Mills Metropark (EN82bj), all in Washtenaw County MI.

From the Hudson Mills trail head, my GD-77 HT can hit the N8DUY repeater (EN82cg) and the W8SRC repeater (EN82bj). Barely breaking squelch on the ARROW analog repeater (EN82df), and no signal on the DMR UHF repeater at the ARROW location.

No QSOs while en route, so I don't know how I sounded.

#BicycleMobile

Just in time for winter I finally mounted an antenna to my bike for #BicycleMobile operations! (Used a spare after market OEM antenna that had the wrong SMA connector with a pigtail.)

Took me a half hour in the shop to make the bracket. NanoVNA suggests it is about 1:1.6 SWR, when I am sitting on the bike. Not sure it'll actually help much to my operations!

Bike party "Tweed Ride" from Farmers Market to Gallup Park by the Huron River in Ann Arbor. Called a few times on 2m but no one answered. Got some great ideas for a radio trailer for operating #BicycleMobile - he had a marine battery feeding two amps and waterproof marine speakers, fed by a cell phone headphone jack on the handlebars.

Operated APRS-IS through APRSDroid on my bike ride home from downtown #AnnArbor. See the track from W8EMV-9 on aprs.fi

https://aprs.fi/#!mt=roadmap&z=15&ts=1668816000&te=1668902400&call=a%2FW8EMV-9

The route I took (to avoid Michigan home game football traffic, #goblue ) took 19 minutes, and I got home just before sunset at 510p.

I heard the tail end of a QSO on #Fedihams via my Pi-Star hotspot from about a block away, but it ended before I got a chance to check in.

[ #APRS #APRSDroid #BicycleMobile ]

Nice QSO with Phil @k9fh just now on #fedihams . We were both in via #YSF , reflector “DE Fediverse” 73737 - on my side via the #dmr2ysf gateway on my Pi-Star hotspot.

The call sign mnemonic is "canine firehouse".

Phil reports seeing traffic on the #TGIF #DMR side as well.

Now off to my bicycle ride! Gotta get out before sunset, hoping to operate #BicycleMobile in some form.

[ #Fedihams https://qrz.is/fedihams/ ]
[ #QSO #digitalvoice ]

A nice bicycle outing to downtown Ann Arbor, before it got dark. Sunset is at 515p today so I really need to not delay when it's time to come home.

Tracking on APRS using APRSDroid on my Android phone, see the track for W8EMV-9 which looks quite accurate to the path I actually took.

Would I like to do this all via RF on 2 meters, of course! Not finding any super obvious low cost option though.

https://aprsdroid.org

[ #APRS #APRSDroid #BicycleMobile #BikeTooter ]

I'm sure there are some bicycle mobile operators around here.

Any tips for starting out?

In the past my main issue was wind noise on the mic

#amateuradio #bicyclemobile