we made it!! Got in around 11:30pm. Trans is great. Thanks for the hospitality Eric!!!

yo!

Any time man

Coming home now. Past SLC. Cars are doing fine. Middle of nowhere. Rain but not too bad so far. Hoping to hit Elko tonite.

I just got home...

We stopped in Reno and installed my new CV and drove home. What a TRIP! But it was all worth it. I had a great time. See everyone next year!

I'm home too. What a trip! I should have pictures up soon.

glad you guys all made it home safe. thanks for coming out

I'm home too.

Totally unforgettable trip. Winning "Golden Wheelbarrow" and the "Never Say Die Award" was so awesome!!!

*HUGE* thanks to Eric for the tranny bits, garage, and hospitality; and also huge thanks to the whole NorCal contingent for rolling up their sleeves and getting me back on the road. You guys all rock!

I had a total blast!

I made it home at about 11:00 pm. I stopped to see my boy in Woodland for an hour or two...it was a great trip, only Andys car came thru unscathed...and I can't say enough about the folks who helped us get thru it all. Eric Shea...what a stud and Vanessa, thank you for putting up with us...always on short notice and usually we make a mess...you're the best. (Hi girls!) And when my car failed to start when we were deep in the mountains..a whole herd of teener pushers helped diagnose the problem, my distributor's pertronics unit had gone to "puppy heaven"...I figured I was screwed...but no, I was offered 3 different distributors, 2 coils, there were timing lights produced, ohm meters, tools, rags expert installation by my "ride along mechanic" Mark DeBernardi....I was amazed and a bit overwhelmed. Ernie, the dist is working fine, it got me back...and you were right about the stumble. I will get a new unit and return yours at the first opportunity...thanks again. It was a great event, I finally met Suzanne Dranow, I wish Howie had been there....he would have loved all the fuss. I got to see my friend Ed Morrow and meet his wife, and I scored some delicious honey..(Ed has a deal with his bees). Put a few new names and faces together, and while we may have missed out on the Friday BBQ, we made it there in time for the Friday evening drunken brawl....and the Saturday version with rain accompaniment...those of you that missed this missed this should wish you hadn't...it was great...thanks to the organizers...and they were able to donate the leftover 650.00 to the Stroke foundation in Howards name....what could be better(Suzanne's idea I think) I still miss him but I think he would have approved of the event. Time for bed....Jim

So Jeff or Fiid - what was the GPS unit used for this trip? Can any unit be linked to google earth as this one was?

Let me know.

Thanks

T

Trevor, it's actually not GPS. It's a HAM radio 'hack' that reported our location.

It's basically a GPS reciever (gets your coordinates) - coupled with a HAM radio transmitter. So - every few seconds or minutes - it fires off the current GPS coordinates, which get gathered up on a database server somewhere.

The easiest way to replicate it would probably be to use a bluetooth GPS reciever and a small application on a Windows Mobile Phone, iPhone, or some other phone with a development platform. Either that or do exactly what Jeff did and get an amateur radio (or HAM) license and use the same tech. Getting a HAM license nowadays is very simple - you only need to complete a 35 question test to get licensed.

Huh, how about that.... Somehow after hearing it explained 10 times, I still missed the fact that it had GPS involved.

So if I have this correct, I would need a GPS unit and a bluetooth GPS receiver?

Or did I miss the boat?

Thanks for your patience

T

To duplicate the system we were using on Fiid's car you would need:

1. an amateur radio (ham) license
2. an amateur radio transceiver set to 144.39 MHz ($100-$200?)
3. a GPS receiver that outputs NMEA serial data packets
4. an APRS transmitter that takes those packets and encodes them into an audio signal for the radio to transmit
5. a decent antenna for the radio, ours was a small mag mount antenna for the 2m (vhf) band and it worked ok.

#4 was a kit that I got for around $30 called TinyTrak. It's a solder together kit with a preprogrammed microcontroller.

Or, go get one of those kits for younger drivers that will show you within 10 fee where your car is at and how fast it is going.

Where are the event pics?

There are three that I know off..

My RRC Pictures, all blurry and stuff ..

A few pictures from Moab

RRC2007 Pics, The party is on!

I have yet to post mine...

There are some HERE as well

I uploaded all 300 of my pictures from the weekend here:

http://gallery.infosite.com/rrc07

cool