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Ultimeter 2100An early birthday present this year: a Ultimeter 2100 from Peet Bros. I had my eye on one of these for a long time because it can do weather telemetry send on APRS. Ordered one from WiMo.
It arrived the other day (see unpack pics in gallery) with a German and original English manual. Fortunately for me because my German is not that good.
Did the glue-thing with the wind cups and test drive the weather station inside. All works fine. Then moved the sensors outside. Wind meter in my antenna mast and temperature sensor in the shade side of the chimney.
Next thing to do is connect the Ultimeter to my Kenwood TM-D710 so the telemetry can put on APRS. That seems quite simple. I put all the settings in and wait….. and wait….. 5 minutes…. 10 minutes…..an hour. No data in the Kenwood. Weird. Switched between I/O-ports on the Ultimeter. Wait….wait….nothing.
Reset the Ultimeter and did all configuration again. Plug the serial cable in it and a few minutes later: tadaaaaa! Weather station data on the Kenwood! That was last night. But after 2 or 3 beacons everything went dead again. No more updates received by the Kenwood. Also: weird wind values appeared on APRS.
But okay, maybe the Ultimeter suffers from RFI, maybe I need to change some settings. We’ll get there I hope! 😉 Anyway, a very cool birthday present!

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The last two weeks we went on holiday in the French Alpes. We went by car with my Kenwood TM-D710 with APRS and GPS-modification on board. This was the first time I entered the Alpes with APRS and I was curious if there was any coverage at all. To my surprise the coverage was excellent!
I also brought my HT (Kenwood TH-D72) with me. We did a few hikes with the HT in the backpack. Due to the excellent coverage, everything got recorded quite nicely. The mountain we hiked on (Céuse) is even equipped with a digipeater: F5ZFN-3.
At the cabin I connected the HT to my Ubuntu laptop and installed Xastir. I wasn’t a big fan of Xastir before only for it looks (or lack of). But when you play a little, it sure is great software with tremendous possibilities. I let the combination run for a night and was a little surprised to see HB, EA and IZ the next morning plotted on the map. Not only excellent coverage but also a great range.

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4u-95-inch-half-rack-200mm-stackable-rack-cabinetAs I moving on with my 23cm transceiver project, I started to look for a need case for it. I’m fully aware of the fact that the case determines how your finished project will look. So I need to find a case that is highly customizable but the same form factor for all projects. Something like a 19″-case but 19″ is way too big for most of my projects.
Searching the web I found a 9,5″-solution. Same idea as 19″ but half its width.
Sounds like an ideal solution for my Do-It-Yourself projects! A little 9,5-cabinet on your desk doesn’t take a lot of space and the form factor is flexibel enough to house several projects (such as the 23cm transceiver and the Arduino keyer).