The new TNC available from Elcom looks *really* interesting to me. Combine it with an EO Tuftab, and wire it directly into the vehicles power via the mini-USB connector (accepts 5-25v), and you have an ideal hardware setup for doing APRS... What I like about this setup is that If you want to pull the tablet from the truck and sit at the picnic table to plan your next route, look at photos, or surf/check e-mail at a rest stop (they have wireless now), you just grab the tablet and go. No USB GPS to unplug. :-) I am not sure how good the GPS chipset is. It uses the ATMEL ANTARIS 4 SuperSense (16 channels) chipset which I don't have any experience with. It uses a patch antenna and there is no option for an external GPS. This is the one part that particularly concerns me as this is the kind of device that typically gets shoved back behind the dash somewhere where GPS signals don't typically reach. An external antenna option would have been very helpful. Still... it's an interesting evolution of this product as the Elcom TNC no longer requires *any* cabling to wire up a GPS or to connect to a computer. That *hugely* simplifies the deployment of APRS for those that want to do it on a computer instead of buying it pre-integrated into a radio. Radio <--------(cable)-----------> TNC <---(Bluetooth Serial)---->Computer
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(Integrated GPS)
Craig |