grant siebrecht

I just switched my home igate from the soundmodem software to an Argent Tracker2.

I uploaded the KISS firmware to it, set it to KISS mode to match Xastir and that’s it.  It worked perfectly.

Just need to get the antenna a little higher to get more range out of it.

I’ve been using my 4 element beam on the roof as my igate antenna. I tried to use a j pole propped up in the corner of the house and I can’t hear stations unless they are about 2 miles away. I need to get an aprs antenna up on the roof.

My igate was having a tough time hearing my radio using the stock antenna.  I turned up the TX level slider in the config program all the way up and the signal is stronger. I’ll find out tomorrow how well this works.  My next step would be to turn the slider back down and add the HI jumper.

I warmed up the GPS sensor and it still transmits non stop, I brought the opentracker+ in the office to warm up and see if the cold weather is affecting it.

I had my opentracker running this morning with the GPS sensor stuck on the roof of my Jeep, it worked for about a mile then went into nonstop transmit.  The red light would not go off the tracker even after power cycling it.  The light did turn off when I unplugged the GPS, I wonder if it does not work in this cold of weather? I had the tracker in the house before i brought it outside.

It could either be a wire came loose or the device does not like cold weather; it’s -6 F today.

Here is the instructions on how to use a px-777 with an Argent Data Systems opentracker+

I had to remove the HT jumper in the tracker, I just hooked it onto a single pin like the HI jumper that is alreay in there, you never know you might need it someday. You don’t need it with this radio.
The HT and the HI jumpers are not jumped.
Voltage selecct 5 was selected and was fine for my application, I was using a 5 volt GPS reciever from Argent.

First step is to cut apart the speaker/mic cable that came with the radio.

Second step is to throw it away. Its cheap tinsel wire that is almost impossible to solder and won’t crimp very well either.

ok, if thats all you have to work with (like I did) I will share what I did.

you first have to strip a few inches of rubber off and expose the colored wires, get out a lighteter and light the wires on fire, they will burn because there is cotten in them.  I had to do that because my ohm meter would not read the wires for some reason.  If you can get it to work without burning them good deal, id try that first.  Someday when I have some more free time I might try to wire it up without burning the cotton out now that I know what all the wires are.

One sheath has 3 wires in it and the other one has two.
Sheath One
green = microphone plug ring, which is PTT, goes to pin 3 on the tracker
copper  = microphone plug sleeve, which is audio out on the tracker, goes to pin 1 on the tracker
blue = speaker sleeve, I  didnt use this wire. I’m not sure why it’s the same as the copper wire in the other sheath. I don’t think I made a mistake, I checked it twice. Either thats the way its made or I got a bad connector.

Sheath Two
red = speaker plug tip, which is audio in on the tracker, goes to pin 5 on the tracker
copper = speaker plug sleeve, ground, goes to pin 6 on the tracker

I twisted a lot of wire to make good contact with my serial connector wires.

The manual for the opentracker+ does a very good job of showing the pinouts.

Here is the wiring diagram for the PTT switch of the px-777.

Here is an image of the pin numbers of a 9 pin serial connector.