Other personal links (Not related to APRS): On Electric Vehicles and Solar Power, or my Energy Choices book.

AMTRAK Tracking: If you took a trip on AMTRAK with your APRS radio and made a plot, send it in. So far we have the Empire Builder Chicago to Washington

APRS is now in its 25st year! APRS is digital communications information channel for Ham radio. As a single national channel (see map at right), it gives the mobile ham a place to monitor for 10 to 30 minutes in any area, at any time to capture what is happening in ham radio in the surrounding area. Announcements, Bulletins, Messages, Alerts, Weather, and of course a map of all this activity including objects, frequencies, satellites, nets, meetings, Hamfests, etc. The APRS network has grown to most countries with strong Amateur Radio populations.

Download: . . APRS/Energy Talk at Superfest in Peoria, ILL Sept 2015

. . . . . . . . . . . . APRStt Satellite QIKCOM-2, presented in Utah, Aug 2015

. . . . . . . . . . . . APRS-by-Bob Powerpoint (8 Mb) (Feb 2015 version).

. . . . . . . . . . . . Dayton 2015 Talk

This page evolves over time. New stuff is posted here at the top. Older stuff migrates downward. To see the full description of APRS you have to drill downward pretty far. But it is there back to the beginning (1992).

Is it your radio? Since packet begain in 1978 too many people use it as a plug-N-play mode where you just connect your TNC to the radio and begin operating. Sure, it probably "works" on some strong signals, but could be suffering 10 to 40 dB of performance loss on weaker signals you might never notice (you dont see what you dont see)... Here is the best explanation I have seen by John Ackermann, N8UR. Some estimate that 90% of signals on the air are "bad" in that they were never adjusted for optimum settings of level, deviation, preemphasis, tone skew, deemphasis, balance, and impedance, etc. Fix it (usually at the transmitter) if you want to be seen.

APRS Operations Tip: There are several different ways to optimize your APRS mobile operations depending on the immediate situation. One way to rapidly select between them without having to go through menu's is to simply program several radio channels with the different settings. The beauty of these channel suggestions is that you can always leave the speaker volume turned up on the APRS data band and can move between full audio monitoring, to Voice Alert, or to complete silence simply by changing channels. For the Voice Alert to always be functional and not miss a call, operators should never have their APRS band volume turned down. Instead, they can silence the speaker in the presence of lots of voice alert stations by selecting the APRSmute channel. By the way, here is a chart of APRS on 30 meters.

RECENT INITIATIVES:

SMSGTE is an SMS/APRS gateway that allows two way messaging between APRS users and cellphones.

Use APRS to support your Hamfest! to advertise, inform and locate

Learn how to operate Voice Alert so you can be contacted while mobile

Check your local Digi to make sure it is current with the New-N Paradigm

Learn about APRStt and involve everyone with a DTMF HT in your club, not just APRS owners

Learn about APRS-RFID and see if you have an application for it in your club

Our Annual Golden Packet Event combines with Scouting's Operation ON-Target Saturday 21 July 2012 1100 to 1400 local time.

Prepare a SET Plan for your next Simulated Emergency test See the APRS SET Message web page. APRS is not a vehicle tracking system. It is a two-way tactical real-time digital communications system between all assets in a network sharing information about everything going on in the local area. On ham radio, this means if something is happening now, or there is information that could be valuable to you, then it should show up on your APRS radio in your mobile. See typical oversights and hear my talk on the 3 Oct 08 Rain Report See also some original APRSdos views and concepts overlooked in some new programs. APRS also supports global callsign-to-callsign messaging, bulletins, objects email and Voice because every local area is seen by the Internet System (APRS-IS)! APRS should enable local and global amateur radio operator contact at anytime-anywhere and using any device. See the APRS Messaging/Contact Initiative. . APRS Internet System (APRS-IS): Like most other Ham radio systems, APRS has been fully integrated with the internet beginning with the efforts of Steve Dimse and the Sproul Brothers in 1997. Currently there are many web pages for live viewing of APRS activity such as APRS.FI, or FINDU.COM. For example, the map below from Hessu, OH7LZB's web site http://aprs.fi/ shows a one month snapshot of activity which reveals some gaps in the APRS coverage in the USA. Click to see 2008's animation!

Click to see 2010 holes, Thanksgiving week 2010)(holes as follows:)

Nebraska APRS SPEC! . APRS continuously evolves. There have been several initiatives that have drastically improved APRS network performance and useability for users. The original APRS spec was updated in 2004 with the APRS1.1 addendum and since then with the APRS1.2 updates. Most of these new initiatives are listed here.

APRS=>DTMF Paging Gateway Gates local APRS info to DTMF Paging radios

APRS RFID using RFID Name tags for locating individuals at a venue

Local Info Initiative to put locally useful info on the mobile APRS radio front panel

APRS Touchtone (APRStt) shows how to use any DTMF HT to report in to APRS

Default Parser (Vicinity Tracking) to make sure every packet heard gets a posit. See also the original Commented Parser.

Tracker Manifesto Trackers are also 2-way participants in the network

AFRS Automatic Frequency Reporting System for rapid amateur radio emergency support or locally recommended Voice Frequency Objects.

APRS Email via the Amateur Satellites

Event and Field Data Entry using the D7 HT.

Voice Alert built-in simplex voice back-channel for APRS mobiles

State APRS WEB pages for each area of the country.

Proportional Pathing for better local tracking and less QRM

SkyCommand uses UI Packets just like APRS and can be commanded from APRS HT's and mobiles.

APRS Special Event Ops for keypad data entry at special events.

Query the QRZ database from your HT or mobile!

Worldwide Digipeater maps by WA8LMF.

National Parks with APRS coverage.