Two Bill 118 Technical Responses

The conversation on Ontario Bill 118 continues over at the excellent RACblog.   VA3QF suggests this paper, which in turn makes use of the Jabra A210, a bluetooth cellphone adapter. That device seem to be on the end of its run, but we can likely find others. I consider the audio link side of the equation pretty solved.

I think there are two issues that need to be dealt with.
  1. An alternative PTT scheme. VOX just isn't always the way to go. Could a flex sensor be used to pick up a unique body gesture that is not considered unsafe? Such as a shrug or a flexed finger? 
  2. Automatic repeater handoff on long trips. As I understand the regulations, it would not be permitted to change frequencies, so unless one is willing to pull over each time he or she switches repeaters, a trip from, say Toronto to Kingston could lose contact pretty quickly as the Toronto repeater is lost. A combination of a micro-controller, GPS, CAT radio control and a small database of repeaters could make this process pretty seamless. 
On this last point, the hardware would be very similar to what I'm putting together for the qrpTracker satPack, an altoids-sized 'dongle' for the FT-817 that does doppler tuning.

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