APRS - Weather Station and Digipeater LX0SCI

Some call it interference ... I call it serving the HAM community

Generated Electricity: 543 kWh (from 2015/Oct/03 to 2019/August/25)

Preface

Since the conception of this project, there have been various attempts by fellow amateur radio operators to hinder and to discredit the project.

  • The national amateur radio society and IARU member issued a negative opinion for my licence application at the authorities because the project would interfere with APRS. Nevertheless, after I gave explanations to the national regulator, a licence for an automated station was issued to me.
  • Later I was accused by an OM of that society that I would not follow the rules. Apparently there hasn't been a coordination for my APRS project. I just wonder why my APRS project has to be coordinated. We all do APRS on the same frequency.
  • Concerning the rules, LX0SCI is respecting the luxembourgish legislation. For LX0SCI an official licence for an automated station was issued to me by the national authorities. Some of those who accused me, were even operating non licenced pirate APRS stations at that time! Nevertheless, since mid-2016 it is allowed to operate a strictly local automatic station without a special licence under one's own licence after a declaration to the authorities..
  • I was also accused that my packets were causing an overlaod in the APRS network. Feel free to check my APRS parameters at aprs.fi: LX0SCI-2 (telemetry is only transmitted via iGate). Also feel free to check yourself at aprs.fi who are the spamming LX operators using time intervals of minutes and even less. You can also look at this screenshot from aprs.fi to see how an excessive load of an LX APRS user looks like. Is he really using a time interval of 10 seconds?

Description

LX0SCI is an experimental APRS weather station and digipeater operated by LX3X . The suffix SCI was chosen for "science". The station will be used to test various self-build equipment and will evolve in the future. The station can work on VHF and UHF. LX0SCI is on the air since 2015/May/08.

  • LX0SCI and LX0DMX were moved into a new rack (2019/Aug/23).
  • The solar power of LX0SCI now also powers the DMR repeater LX0DMX (2017/Aug/19).
  • LX0SCI has received new controller hardware (RaspberryPi) (2017/Aug/17).
  • LX0SCI has received a fourth identical solar panel (2017/Apr/08).
  • LX0SCI has received a new solar regulator (old one: 118 kWh) (2017/Apr/07).
  • LX0SCI has received a third identical solar panel (2016/Aug/18).
  • Additional mains charging is no longer needed (2016/Feb/20).
  • During the winter months energy harvesting is very restricted because of the suboptimal orientation of the solar panels. Therefore an additional mains charger is used for supporting the equipment. (2015/Dec/12).
  • LX0SCI has received a second identical solar panel (2015/Jun/29).
  • LX0SCI has received a new solar panel (2015/May/28).
  • The excessive solar energy of LX0SCI is available in the shack of LX3X for powering the VHF and UHF radios (2015/May/26).
  • LX0SCI has received a new solar regulator (2015/May/20).
  • LX0SCI has received a new 12V/180Ah battery (2015/May/18).
  • Experimental telemetry reports are running (2015/May/13).
  • The controller hardware and firmware were modified to allow future telemetry reports (2015/May/12).
  • LX0SCI runs on 100% solar power (2015/May/10).
  • LX0SCI goes on the air (2015/May/08).

Equipment (2019/Aug/25)

  • Radio: Yaesu FT-7900
  • MoDem: TinyTrak4
  • Digipeater controller: APRX running on RaspberryPi
  • Antenna: Diamond X-50N

Parameters (2018/Aug/17)

Pictures

old antenna


custom PICthermo and TinyTrak4


thermometer sensor


solar panels


solar regulator, current in excess


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