APRS: SSIDs, Paths, and Beacons - Ham Radio Q&A 

I'll vouch for this one. I "repurposed" and older handheld and an old cell phone with 12V power adapters, added a Mobilinkd TNC and run it as my mobile. Works great, but I'm going to make some adjustments to the path based on this video.

I would like to see a video of how to set up the mobilinkd system and test it.

100% agree - I have a lot of different options, but I love the Mobilinkd for being an easy to use, adds mapping and messaging to a small portable APRS station.

That was most likely the case. They went out one hop and there wasn't an igate close any of the other digipeaters.

Home station video is coming up next, so stay tuned.

I'll put together a beacon box video. I need to dig out my list of commands for the TNC

15-20 years ago, APRS was quite popular and there was a lot more activity. Now it seems like it has settled down quite a bit. But with the popularity of the Yaesu FTM-400, I'm seeing quite a few more mobile stations on the air again.

It's an Edsal workbench with a formica top and the electronics riser. My wife's employer used to do service work and I purchased it used when they cleared out that department. It looks like you could piece the components together via Amazon or Global Industrial.

I was using UIview with the PA7RHM map server. Development stopped long ago when the original passed away, but the program keeps running as it has an open architecture that allows for add-ons. I'll be looking at a newer software option in a future video.

I noticed that my hotspot shows up on the local APRS map.

Really nothing other than the honor and integrity of other amateur radios operators to not do that.

There are two different thoughts on digipeaters: Some believe that digipeaters should have a high vantage point and cover large swaths of area and others think that APRS should be a distributed network of low height digipeater and digipeat configured home stations to reduce overall channel congestion. The best is a combination of both types. The low digis work to fill in holes and catch the signal of weaker stations and the high, wide area, digis propagate the network further distance. A properly configured low digi or home station set up to digipeat will digipeat only Wide1-1 packets while a wide are digipeater will digipeat any WideN-N packet. So a mobile station or a tracker should use Wide1-1 as its first path position to ensure it will get into some type of digipeater. Once digipeated, the Wide1-1 expires and the next digipeaters work on the Wide2-2 path. Home stations should almost never use the Wide1-1 in first position. Those stations are not moving, so they should be able to hit a wide area digipeater. You'll use only a Wide2-2 or a Wide3-3 as your path for a home station and not use the Wide1-1 at all. When you set up your home station, you'll want to listen to the APRS channel for a bit to find which digipeaters you can hear directly and include them in your path to help reduce channel congestion (we'll talk about that in a future video). I hope this makes sense, let me know if it doesn't.

got it, the multiple wide statements allow the message to fan out as is goes from a local node to the larger network

I'm not sure if you saw this video I did recently on low power APRS trackers: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-Egq-qBhnLig.html but it may give you insight. Be sure to pack an external antenna, like a mag mount for the vehicle as the duck on the handheld won't cut it when you are moving. I looked at APRS.fi, and fortunately there is a digipeater in Eagle Harbor, so you should have APRS coverage.

@@KB9VBRAntennas Thank you very much Michael!

If your digipeater is set up properly with the 1-1 nomenclature then you will SAR1-1 as your alias. I wouldn't use SAR1 as the alias especially if you are planning to use multiple low level digis. The reason is that if the alias is SAR1‚ does not properly utilize the N-N packet structure so you will get a higher amount of bounces between digis- degrading the channel through put. (This would be similar to what happened back in the day when we used the RELAY alias for low level digipeating). SAR1-1 will will do a proper countdown and reduce duplicate packets on the network.

I'm not sure I see an advantage to doing that. The purpose of a low power digi is to get your packet to a wide digi so it propagates in the system. If you are in a remote location‚ what are your chances of being heard by more than one low digi? And if you are heard by more than one low digi- wouldn't you just as likely be able to be heard by a wide? Wide1-1 is an established protocol so you are better off sticking with it.

@@KB9VBRAntennas thanks for the reply, I am still learning, that said sar group = multiple moble digi so it is possable to hop 2 or 3 times before hitting a wide2 or gate.

I have a low level fill-in digipeater at my home. This gives me better APRS coverage in my neighborhood and inside the house when I use my Yaesu FT3DR. I set its UNPROTO path to WIDE1-1 so that it will automatically digipeat first hop packets that it hears so that they can be repeated by a higher digipeater. It will also digipeat other packets but since those have already been digipeated once by a higher lever digipeater‚ they won't get digpeated by the high level digipeater again. Here's a video on how I do it: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-1SvibQpaXBY.html

@@KB9VBRAntennas Thanks. Am using Xastir, on the Unproto Paths. I have 3 paths to put in details and 1 Igate ->RF path .. Path 1 to 3 it says APX210 via ______ .. where will i put WIDE1-1 ? any of the APX210 via or the Igate ->RF?

Best to do is to go to APRS.fi and see which digipeaters show up on the map. A digipeater will have the star icon.

If you are using aprs.fi‚ you can use the wildcard '*' to search for all the aliases for a particular callsign. That is CALLSIGN* to show all aliases for a callsign

@@KB9VBRAntennas now that I think about it if I just enter the call x7xxx that would be the only ssid repeated because x7xxx-9 would actually be ssid different.

It would be -5 for the app. You use -7 if your HT supports APRS natively like the Kenwood D7 or Yaesu VX8 series

Barring any equipment failures in your local APRS network‚ maybe the problem is due to atmospheric conditions that affect propagation. Could it be when propagation is good that distant signals from other digipeaters overwhelm your local digis? You'd have to monitor the APRS channel with a TNC and terminal program so you could watch how active the channel is and from how far packets are coming from.

Some of the pricier weather stations from Peet Brothers and Davis Instruments offer native APRS support, but I'll do a bit of research and see if I can come up with a cheaper alternative to create an APRS weather station.

Ok

No it is not mission critical. That was never the intention of APRS. With APRS‚ transmission is guaranteed but reception is not. Since their are no acknowledgements of packets received‚ it shouldn't be used in situations were verification of your signal being received is required. But it is a very robust communication system and excels at what it does well: which is to provide real-time information of locations‚ tracks‚ and objects for a local area.