Winlink Land Mobile Operations

Here are some pics of my land mobile.

The pics show the permanently mounted LCD touch screen USB key board and mouse. The screen is mounted on a RAM mount that makes it easy to remove when not needed. The key board tucks in behind the driver's seat and the mouse sits in the centre consol with the computer when not in use.

The system is driven by a modified Mini Book PC mounted in the centre consol and powered by a Belkin laptop power supply wired directly from the battery to a master switch to avoid spikes. I tried many power options but most caused to much noise over the HF bands when using it for voice communications. The present power supply is one of the keys to the success of the system as it puts out minimal interference. The other consideration is the quantity of power used and having been designed for a laptop the Belkin is frugal on energy use.

The computer now runs an 800 P3 chip with a copper heat sink. The pc was shipped with a 1.2 P3 chip but it ran to hot and often shut down on hot days. I therefore dropped to the 800 chip and have had no more cooling problems even when travelling in 45 C. plus. All the software and maps are stored on a 40g hard drive running the maps on 28 separate virtual CD rom drives. This saves changing CD's and allows much faster access to the maps (This was a major challenge).

A Navman GPS is mounted on the Bullbar and has proven to be extremely reliable given the amount of corrugated dirt roads the rig has been on.

A Barrett 120 watt HF Radio (proudly made in Australia) and an auto tune antenna make this system work like a dream. The Barrett is military spec and very reliable. Strapped to the back of the radio is a PTC-11 Modem running P3 firmware. To power this beast under the bonnet are 2x300 Lifeline amp hour deep cycle batteries.

I have also incorporated a data cable from the hands free kit of the cell phone to connect to the PC so when the phone is dropped in the car cradle I have internet access via GPRS on the computer. All this hardware allows for a number of communications and navigations systems to work together like Email and Position Reports via Winlink; Email and web browsing via GPRS; Voice communication via HF radio telephone "Voice over HF" to VK bases Voice over HF to VK mobiles; Navigation via geo-referenced full colour moving maps of the entire country including outback tracks and Street by Street real-time navigation and voice guidance powered by Co-Pilot (Note the CPU fan for cooling and USB hub for keyboard and mouse. An air conditioning duct also runs to here for extra hot days).

I hope you can understand all the above. It would take a long time to really explain this system in detail.

Regards Charles (VK2SYD)