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TAPR.org has some pretty intense kits for transmitting data over packet radio, you could use one of their kits with a PIC microcontroller to take serial data from a GPS receiver or weather station and transmit it as formatted packet frames... Here's a bit about the organization and the kit store page...
"If you have used a packet radio TNC, then you are already a part of TAPR history. The TNC (Terminal Node Controller) project grew from a discussion in October of 1981 at a meeting of the Tucson Chapter of the IEEE Computer Society. A week later, six of the attendees gathered and discussed the feasibility of developing a Terminal Node Controller that would be complete and available to amateurs at a modest cost. This was the genesis of TAPR. On June 26th 1982, Lyle Johnson, WA7GXD, and Den Connors, KD2S, initiated a packet contact with the first TAPR unit. The project progressed from these first prototype units to the TNC-1 and then finally to the TNC-2 which is now the basis for most amateur packet operations worldwide. TAPR was founded in 1982 as a international organization with interests in the areas of packet and digital communications. Today, TAPR continues as a membership supported non-profit amateur research and development organization. TAPR currently has more than 2000 members, worldwide and continues to develop kits for the amateur community and is working actively on publications and communications standards. TAPR is the place for digital communication information and research." - Link.
Pretty cool... but note the kit is no longer available except as a bare PCB (printed circuit board).
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if you go here:
http://www.tapr.org/kits.html
there is a list of current kits..
some of these are pretty high end for a beginner.. the kind of folks who might just be sumbling onto this stuff..
a better introduction might be:
http://n1vg.net/opentracker/
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Also if you want a software approach to see whats on the bands try:
http://www.soundcardpacket.info/
Amateur Radio Soundblaster Software Collection
(by Dr. Oliver Welp, DL9QJ)
http://www.muenster.de/~welp/sb.htm
Simple as plugging audio from the receiver to the soundcard.
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Hey, this is almost what I'm after but not quite, I want a very simple RF interface to transmit state change data maybe once a minute or so from a PC to a light board that lets me know the status of various processes my computer is monitoring. Anyone know of a good, simple protocol/pic solution that would be good for such an application?
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