Yaesu: Aprs on a base station ft-857d ?

[W2JMZ]

Hello all!
I have a Yaesu ft-857d as my base station HF, 2M, 70CM rig right now. I can only work 20M, 2M, and 70CM due to antenna restrictions (space and condo associations). Included in my setup is a signalink USB and a old laptop running windows XP that has CAT control over the radio. I've been itching to dabble in APRS for some time now and a FTM-400xdr is in the future for my mobile rig.

Here's my question. What I would like to do is set up my base station so when I'm away from home or not using it to play around on it would act as a digipeter/IGate. Ive scoured the internet and am seeing promising prospects in making this work but I'm relatively new to this and all of the things I've seen don't map it out well about how I should go about establishing this.

I've seen people caution over flooding the network and setting up improper stations that basically cause so much harmful interference it renders APRS useless in that area. Hence me not wanting to mess this up. But I know there is a coverage gap in my area.

Any suggestions or help in me setting this up would be greatly appreciated.



73

W2JMZ

 

[AK9R]

Note that there are digipeaters located just north of Monmouth Battlefield State Park and near Heathcote. Are you sure there's a need for a digipeater in your area?