Anyone using APRS?

Greg Eigsti said:
I have a couple TMD700a's and don't see that they support this functionality - but they might. :) If I remember will give a try later in the day when I get home to see what I can see.

@1Louder - point of clarification. Your raw APRS data shows no space between the frequency and the - (dash) but your screenshot above looks like there is one in there. Does the space between the freq and the dash exist in the radio setting and get stripped out somewhere? Also I assume that "[Freq MHz]" is a placeholder for something like "146.535MHz" or does the radio replace "146.535MHz" with your non-data band current freq?
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Put in verbatim what I typed and showed. [Freq MHz] is what tells the radio to tell APRS what to display. If I am on 146.460. 123.45 etc that will be shown in APRS. I don't really know how APRS.FI or anything else interprets the data.
 
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Greg Eigsti said:
Thanks! Searched the TM-D700 manual and found no mention of the QSY feature but did see a few things on the internet that indicated it would work.

That was the answer that I was hoping for - makes it a lot more automated/nicer. I'll give it a whirl on my 700s when I get home and see what I can learn. Cool feature!
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The 710 and Yaesu 400 both have a QSY tune feature where, if they receive that info formatted properly, you can set your voice channel to it with a push of a button, tone and all for repeaters.
 
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@1Louder - Thanks!
@TerryD - will give the push-button-to-tune feature a try later on.

The TM-D700 does not initially appear to support replacement of [Freq MHz] with the non-data-band frequency :( Got the following packet out from work and [Freq MHz] was not replaced.
Will reprogram with an explicit frequency for the drive home and see what happens.

2019-04-15 14:02:34 CDT: CALLSIGN>4W4RUU,RS0ISS,WIDE1-1,qAR,KI7RYA-5:'2a]l <0x1c>K\]"4K}[Freq MHz] - QSY test
 
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@TerryD - unfortunately the 700 does not appear to support QSY TX or RX. Received a packet from my radio and saw no facility to tune to the embedded frequency. Sorry I could not help - but thanks for the education!
 
My APRS radio ran for 6 days straight while I was on a 450 mile round trip this last weekend/week and there are obvious holes in coverage in the SE part of the state.
The packets that did make it were long haul packets hitting digi's 115-160 miles away in Arkansas or NE Oklahoma.
camp2019g.PNG
 
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Prerunner1982 said:
My APRS radio ran for 6 days straight while I was on a 450 mile round trip this last weekend/week and there are obvious holes in coverage in the SE part of the state.
The packets that did make it were long haul packets hitting digi's 115-160 miles away in Arkansas or NE Oklahoma.
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What path setting(s) were/are you using in that part of the country?
 
Michael G. said:
I bought my FTM100 because of the APRS tracking so that my wife will be able to know where i am when i hit the road. That way she doesnt get worried of feel the need to call me.
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I feel like that’s the same reason many of us do it haha.

On a serious note, provided you have communication to a satalite, a beacon is a great last know location, heading and speed which are the major factors in finding lost people out in the wilderness
 
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Prerunner1982 said:
Run it pretty much all the time.
Have an acquaintance that ran it on a trip from South Texas to Alaska, there were some spots with no coverage especially in Canada and Alaska but not too bad in the contiguous 48.
View attachment 63958
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I did a similar trip before I had my ham license. I wish I'd known about aprs and other capabilities that come with ham radio during that trip.
 
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I'm setup to do it as needed. Just tooling around I just run it on my cell phone but out in the woods away from cell signal I can hook up what I need to get a message out using a 40 dollar droid phone from Ebay and a handheld. I can make it work with my mobile too but it's a little clunkier. I've been browsing the various mobiles that have APRS functionality built in.
 
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I have been getting more active with APRS again and stumbled on the Anytone AT-D878UV radio that is a self contained APRS HT at around $200. A little over for the BT model and a little under for the non-BT model. That is less than half the price of any other APRS self contained HT or mobile; have one sitting in my cart... What is holding me back from clicking "purchase" is that it is primarily a (cheap Chinese) DMR radio and I am not (yet) into DMR and with accessories my order is right at $300 and that is half/most of the way to what I really want: Kenwood TH-D74A.

Which gets me thinking. I have a Kenwood TH-D7A HT which is an older APRS capable radio; it is early enough that it does not have an onboard GPS but I do have the supplied cable and most, if not all, of the accessories. I just pulled it out of the closet and bought a new AC charger, battery, whip antenna; it runs great, is in great condition and has had an easy life. If memory serves these usually sell used in the ~$250 range and ebay currently has one at $175 and another at $335. I'd be willing to let it go to a licensed ham / forum member for $200; I might even be swayed to throw in a mag mount antenna and adapter for a mobile solution. I used it that way recently debugging an antenna issue on the main radio in the Jeep and it worked extremely well.

I have had the opportunity to do several long road trips using the Ram mounted iPad Pro 11 as my nav/music/phone control center and LOVE it! Using combination of Apple and Gaia maps - being able to flip between on the fly is awesome! I like Apple's guidance through towns and Gaia out of towns (typically). Now I want to add APRS to the iPad scheme. The Mobilinkd is a ~$120 way to tether your Baofeng (etc) to APRSDroid or APRS.fi apps. Looks very interesting but does not fit into my plan, may have to get one to play with though :) Some of the other outstanding APRS related items that I have stumbled on recently are many things at Byonics and the HamShield (mini too). Recently purchased a Byonics GPS/MicroTrak 2001 for a friend's Christmas/Birthday gift and it is pretty cool!

Anyway, enjoy whats left of your weekend!
 
tacoclifford said:
I feel like that’s the same reason many of us do it haha.

On a serious note, provided you have communication to a satalite, a beacon is a great last know location, heading and speed which are the major factors in finding lost people out in the wilderness
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I have had packets digi'ed by ISS (then gated by a groundstation) using a simple omni. Fun!

APRS is great to notify the family IF you can hit a digi/gate/etc. - typically in med/large towns, interstates, etc. Most of the country has very little APRS coverage and none at your awesome remote campsite. My overlanding group wants some reliable way to communicate with the outside world and not a full internet stream because nobody likes seeing someone glued to their phone at the campfire. Iridium is our current answer - we use a homebrew system that allows us to send/receive SMS messages. Each message we send over iridium (from camp) has a lat/lon associated with it, our server injects that lat/lon into the APRS-IS (making that our current location) and includes an aprs.fi link to my callsign into each outgoing message. Neato. I know that there are a couple/few handheld options that use Iridium as well but have no experience with them. There is also spot messenger but bad experiences with them ultimately led to iridium.
 
Anybody doing HF APRS to hit digis/gates from remote places? I may have to retreat from my position that APRS is only good in populated areas ;)
 
Greg Eigsti said:
Anybody doing HF APRS to hit digis/gates from remote places? I may have to retreat from my position that APRS is only good in populated areas ;)
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How remote are we talking? The president of our local hame club goes all over the Northwest, and has stories of his mom sending him texts asking why he is where he is when he should be on the interstate
 
Slimpartywagon said:
How remote are we talking? The president of our local hame club goes all over the Northwest, and has stories of his mom sending him texts asking why he is where he is when he should be on the interstate
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As remote and mountainous as we can get here in the PNW - the Rockies of Montana, S Eastern OR, Wyoming, Nevada, etc. As a technician I am limited to 2 meter APRS and that drops off once you leave the black top. A buddy got his General last weekend (in Redmond WA) and is pushing me towards HF. Maybe HF APRS is the motivation that I need!

I am a 2 meter APRS fanatic, just looking for something to communicate from that high mountain valley. And so far iridium is it. HF APRS sounds interesting though!

Here are some spots that are "APRS deaf" and also make for good overlanding.
47.10082, -112.47989
42.25071, -118.17840
41.75407, -118.75193
41.30160, -116.85448
39.39804, -117.03883

The aprs.fi "heat map" (zoomed out) shows that the places my cadre goes have little to no APRS coverage.
1581953850549.png
 
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Greg Eigsti said:
As remote and mountainous as we can get here in the PNW - the Rockies of Montana, S Eastern OR, Wyoming, Nevada, etc. As a technician I am limited to 2 meter APRS and that drops off once you leave the black top. A buddy got his General last weekend (in Redmond WA) and is pushing me towards HF. Maybe HF APRS is the motivation that I need!

I am a 2 meter APRS fanatic, just looking for something to communicate from that high mountain valley. And so far iridium is it. HF APRS sounds interesting though!

Here are some spots that are "APRS deaf" and also make for good overlanding.
47.10082, -112.47989
42.25071, -118.17840
41.75407, -118.75193
41.30160, -116.85448
39.39804, -117.03883

The aprs.fi "heat map" (zoomed out) shows that the places my cadre goes have little to no APRS coverage.
View attachment 140416
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APRS is never deaf, it simply is out of reach of an igate at times. The fact is that the mode operates completely independently of the internet.
 
RockyMountaineer said:
APRS is never deaf, it simply is out of reach of an igate at times. The fact is that the mode operates completely independently of the internet.
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I simply meant to say that APRS is deaf if there is nobody to receive it; maybe a poor choice of words. I believe that the scenario that most folks are interested in, myself included, is the ability to "phone home" with a message or beacon while overlanding. If you can't hit a digi/igate but you can hit a rancher's unmonitored radio have you achieved that goal? For me, the fusion of RF and making it accessible via igating is what makes APRS compelling. My non-ham-non-tech wife can click on a link and (hopefully) see my latest status.

I think your point was that APRS is not deaf because intra vehicle (non-internet) comm via APRS is possible. This is actually the subject that has drawn me back into APRS. I have become accustomed to navigating with an ipad and want to add APRS to that to allow additional comm opportunities for the convoy - not necessarily to get out to the rest of the world - but to enhance the convoy's ability to operate as efficiently as possible.
 
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