APRS
Another post in my burst of amateur radio blog posts.
To say that the documentation for APRS is not great is an understatement. What should be the best source of information, aprs.org, is just a collection of angry rants by the inventor of APRS, angrily accusing implementations and operators of using his invention the wrong way. There’s no documentation about what the right way is, just that everyone is wrong.
So here I’ll attempt to write down what it is, in one place, in an effort to both teach others, and for people who know more than me to correct me.
The best source of APRS information for me has actually been Kenwood radio manuals. See resources at the bottom.
APRS in short
APRS is a way to send short pieces of digital information as packets of data. The messages are:
- Status about you
- Your position (optionally not exact)
- Your heading
- Your QSY (frequency you’re tuned to if someone wants to call)
- Weather reports
- Status about “items” and “objects”. This is objects that are not you, and aren’t a radio. For example where the meeting point is, or a hurricane.
- Short messages
The protocol
As an operator you Continue reading
