HAM radio for BRB Tracker

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Kurt, do you know if anyone has put a table together showing common H/Ts and APRS ability (or other tracking features)? I'm a newly minted ham user with zero radio experience outside of an aircraft. The D72A functionality is appealing but my CFO may object to the price tag, plus many of my fellow club members use 220MHz trackers so a tri-band is also appealing. Just wondering how many options are out there for APRS and RDF without needing 6 hands to carry them all.

I don't know of a list per se but Yaesu stuff except the out of production VX-8GR have a closed TNC meaning you can't get the packets out of the units for anything.
Stay away from used Kenwood D7A's and D7A(g)'s. I have two of them and the oscillators went out of spec and they are deaf for tracking. One block range
for a Beeline GPS. Plus the TNC's go bad in them.
If one doesn't mind using a Mobilnkd with the slight handicaps I recount above, a Kenwood Th-F6A can receive on the B band the upper sideband and CW modes that make the Com-Spec and Walston stuff "hearable". Now whether or not the Rf range is the same as the commercial trackers I know not. Might be that it
might not perform a manufacturers receiver. Kurt
 
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