Automobile ATCS monitor Part 2  (Part 1 is here)


I have posted information about my new portable ATCS Monitor setup in my car, it fits on the visor of my car.  This setup let me follow the Internet feed of ATCS Monitor data in my city.



The computer is a $60 Winbook TW700 from Microcenter.  It runs Windows 8.1.  To pick up the Internet and ATCS Internet data, I have a little NetZero U770 Wifi USB stick stuck into the USB port on the right side of the Winbook.  And power comes from my cigarette lighter USB charging thing.  Happily, this computer has a full sized USB port and a micro USB port.

Now I can drive home from work, turn on the above computer, and determine if any trains will be in the area where I am driving.  Warning: don't look at the computer while driving, pull over and do it while stationary in a safe spot.

When I am done, I turn the computer off, and fold the visor up.  The little table computer seems to vanish.


Part Two:
Advancing this project: combining the Internet feed and a radio feed into the portable ATCS Monitor setup in my car.

For this, I used a magnet mount roof top antenna, a Maxtrac (runs on car 12v DC from cigarette lighter outlet) and an  I-mic device to feed the computer data.  Thit way, I can pick up live ATCS Monitor signals in addition to the ATCS Monitor signals on the Internet.

The antenna I used is a combination of a magnet base and an antenna that gets inserted into the magnet base:
The items are: Pasternack  PE51022-10  NMO Magnetic Mount Antenna base with a 12' cable that has a male "mini-UHF" connector.  Plus a  Pasternack  PE51010   mobile antenna tuned to 898 MHz, 870 - 950 MHz, 5dB (the cable's male "Mini UHF" connector fits into a Maxtrac radio.  You can get the antenna also with other style connectors, such as male BNC for typical scanners).   In the photo, this Pasternack  ATCS antenna system is the one closest to the sun roof of the car.  The taller antenna is a old non-ATCS radio scanner antenna.



Here is the end of the antenna cable going into the maxtrac that is sitting behind my driver's seat, propped up by an ammo box.  The bright white round thing is the Griffen I-mic that feeds sound data to the USB port on my computer.

http://morscher.com/atcs/car_atcs4.jpg

To connect my I-mic and my computer, I jammed about 12 feet of USB cable into the joints of my car's interior and also clipped them to the roof of the car's interior.  The long USB cable from the I-mic joins my NetZero U770 Wifi USB stick at a mini USB hub on the passenger's side sun visor, that in turn is connected to the computer on the driver's side sun visor with 12 inches more of USB mess.



For the ACTS Monitor program to display local plus internet feeds, I have 2 instances of ACTS Monitor running.

One instance of ACTS Monitor program gets data from the maxtrac- I-mic- sound card pathway.  This gets assigned to  "Server Mode Listener" and a port, such as 4801 and something like "Base=30000,60"

The second instance of ACTS Monitor program gets the data from the Internet and also from the local computer itself.   The local computer's Internet address is  127.0.0.1  and then whatever port you are running, such as 4801.  It took me a while to figure out the local computer's Internet address is  127.0.0.1    on my WinXP machine,  "127.0.0.1"  did not work, but "localhost" and port 4801 did.

 Be careful, don't drive while looking at this thing.





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