Recently there was a message in the Winona ARC mailing from Ben that he had some kits (PCB + parts) available for tinkering. I’ve been experimenting with APRS so why not?

Some reading on their website, a look at the BOM, and some coffee later and I set to solder this unit into the finished product. The interactive BOM was very helpful in putting everything where it went and saved a lot of possible frustration.

Since instructions on how to build and program this unit are out there and they are very detailed, I won’t go into much detail about it.

I set it up under Windows with the GPS unit I cobbled together (post on that some other time once I finish it) and APRSISCE/32. The unit works in KISS mode which is very simple to set up. After a short while I had TX LED whenever I transmitted manually or the timer from the software said it was time to transmit.

I grabbed my Baofeng UV-5R EX and built a rig cable for the NucleoTNC and within a second of connecting it, it was receiving APRS data and showing up on my computer screen. Transmit a while later after I re-enabled automatic beacons I found was also working properly: the local iGate from W0NE was hearing me as well as other local iGates.

I took the setup out for a drive and everything worked flawlessly. I have to say I am impressed with this little TNC and not only the quality and simplicity are up there, the ease of building it was very good.

I would recommend this to anybody doing packet radio or APRS and wanting a simple KISS TNC to use for their setup!