APRS in 2019 (part 1)

January 30, 2019Dan No Comments »

I recently picked up a new, Chinese made, “HT” style ham radio. I had been pretty curious about what advancements have been made in the nearly 20 years since I last purchased a handheld radio. I’ve been specifically curious about some of the newer, popular digital modes (around here, UHF DMR). And my new radio, an Anytone AT-D878UV, will allow me to join the fun. Here you see the new AnyTone radio next to my old Alinco.

One of the selling points of the new radio was that it supports APRS out of the box – just fill in your callsign, and a few other details, and away it goes, happily posting your current GPS position to the APRS network.

But I was having trouble with it. Even when I had a GPS fix, the radio was sending positioning data, and I was pretty sure I was within range of an APRS gateway…my position never made it into the online database at aprs.fi. After trying a few other settings, and searching online for the problem, it was apparent that I needed to find out if my radio was sending out valid APRS packets. Stay tuned for part 2…

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