Looks a little like Fry's in the central/southern CA area. As much as I'd like them to go national, I don't think it would make sense. Besides, that'd be one less reason to visit Las Vegas!

http://frys.com/

Or they could die, which seems to be the choice they've made.

That's a shame. After the rise of Best Buy, Circuit City and Compusa I thought they'd be done. Instead they focused on selling mobile phones. Then they cut their parts inventory down to bare bones. Now that carriers aren't offering any deals to resellers (and Apple selling product direct in their stores),  and Internet retailers shipping product to your door in a day or so for 1/3 the price, there's just no reason for them to exist.

I always thought they could shift gears to something along the lines of a Build-a-Bear workshop, but for electronics projects (and teens/adults, not toddlers). There are so many cheap mini controllers and industrial PCs out there that there has to be a way to leverage that into a business. The problem with Radio Shack doing something like that is it would require a lot of training for their staff, something they've never been too interested in doing.

Another reason to wait on the FT-817: The Elecraft KX-3. Simply put, a lot of people are very excited about this radio, and there's a lot of backorders being processed (I think they finally shipped out the last of the first day's orders). Over the weekend I picked up an Elecraft K2 with almost all options other than the 100 Watt PA for $750 (I priced out all the options and it would have been over $1500 to buy as a kit). The seller said it didn't make sense to sell it for more given the price of the KX-3 new.

So in a few months, when production is ramped up I'm sure we'll start to see a lot of FT817s at hamfests and on ebay.

There's still lots of places where there is no cell coverage.

There are plenty of places where you are roaming and your carrier doesn't have a data agreement.

The cellular companies are moving to fiber-based backhaul from the tower to the central office. If the fiber is cut you will loose that tower, no matter how much fuel is in the generator tank.

The recent fires in Colorado showed us (and first responders) the value of using APRS along with other communications methods. There were hams with manpack video systems who were able to show the command center parts of the fires that weren't reachable via aircraft. Instead of having to relay coordinates, they could just send video and their position was known from the map.

This weekend I went to a hamfest in Colorado Springs. I had excellent APRS coverage along the entire route, while my cell phone experienced both the roaming issue and dead spots. AND it didn't use any of my "unlimited" 5GB of data either.

I really don't understand why I'm even bothering to reply to your post, though. If you don't want to use the amateur radio service, just let your license lapse and use Google Latitude. It does the same basic thing, and you don't need to buy any extra hardware.

You have to configure the <WX> macro under the MISC tab:

http://www.w1hkj.com/FldigiHelp-3.22/ConfigMisc.html

Also, note the METAR station macro requires a colon ( between WX and the station callsign: <WX:KASE>

Just a guess, but have you tried to reload/update the firmware? It doesn't sound like you have a software problem, but I'd give that a try before sending it in for repair.

http://www.kenwood.com/i/products/info/amateur/th_d72/thd72_main_update_e.html

I was ready to send mine in because the PTT button didn't seem to make contact. It turned out to be a software problem that was fixed with the update to 1.05.

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/07/how-software-defined-radio-could-revolutionize-wireless/

Interesting read. Looks to me like the developers aren't too interested in type acceptance or licensing though.

Thanks for the link (I always forget about Yahoo group...). Unfortunately no luck. I have voltage at the port (besides my interface only uses TXD and RXD on the radio side). At this point, I could continue just using the mic port for 90% of what I need the CAT port for. The only thing that will be inconvenient will be logging voice contacts, but I could make up a breakout box anyway.

The big problem will be when I go to sell it, which I might be doing in the next few months. I'm sure I'll take a beating on price if I don't fix it, but since I can get by with the workaround I don't have much incentive to fix it either. Of course the repair cost is going to be the determining factor. From what I read on the reviews page it looks like Yaesu won't quote until they have it on site. And if I go to the trouble of sending it in I might as well have them fix it too.

It looks like I have a bad CAT port on my FT-897d. It was working fine on Tuesday night, but Wednesday afternoon I started getting "Rig not responding" errors from FLDIGI. After double checking all settings I did a factory reset and still nothing. This afternoon I made a cable for the microphone jack and it seems to be working just fine, but I did have to change the CAT port to "tuner" in the menus, even after setting the mic jack to CAT.

Is there any other testing that I should try before calling Yeasu repair? I have an LDG AT-897 tuner, but it is the old one that needs an extra module to communicate with the radio for auto tune, and I don't have a linear amp to test either.

I haven't ever done any surface mount soldering and I really don't think I should start with my kilo-buck radio.

Nice job. I like that it continues the lesson in the background. That way if I'm out and about I can use the Memo app for typing letters when practicing.

Also was able to use Wolphi's Morse decoder app to decode the lessons, just for fun.

You can message with the keypad on the D72, but you'll need to switch the TNC from Packet mode to APRS mode. After you send the message, switch back to packet mode. Depending on the hardware you're using, you might want to just keep the D72 in APRS mode, letting it beacon and all the other stuff, and just use your GPS as a display unit.

There is a program that started out on Linux called Xastir. It isn't the most friendly software in the world, but there is a Mac OS-x build that is well maintained. There is documentation available for getting it to work on mac with a D72.

Unless you're out in the wilds of Northern Montana, you should be just fine with 5 watts and a decent antenna. When I lived in an area without local digipeaters I used a 1/2 wave antenna on the back of my bicycle and it worked just great. Besides, 50W on a motorcycle might cause RF exposure problems. Even on I-70 in southern Utah ("next service area 150 miles") I get into digipeaters on 10 watts (TM-d700 on L power setting). Hwy 50 through Nevada was a different story however...

What about announcing your grid square like sat operators?

CQ CQ CQ de K0JEG DM69nf

Just looking at that radio's spec sheet I have to think the cost is much more than the casual portable/QRP operator is willing to spend. Plus I see what looks like some very expensive connectors that won't be available at the local Radio Shack in a pinch.

Here's a site selling one for $9,800! http://tinyurl.com/6n63b7m Granted, it's "fully loaded" but still...

Of course, if you're out there every weekend you might be able to justify the cost. I'll keep saving my pennies for a KX3 though.

Second question first: No, position reports sent directly to the APRS-IS servers over the Internet don't get sent over the air.

First question is a little more difficult: I think if a gateway has heard from an RF station, and the gateway is configured to allow it, you can pass text messages from the Internet to RF. I've done it with Xastir in the past. If I remember correctly, you may have to manually route it to the gateway you want, although the article below says otherwise...

http://aprsisce.wikidot.com/deleted:aprs-messenging-explained