APRS Information

If you have your old packet equipment stashed away, dust it off and give APRS a try! It's basically the same equipment.

  Help/How To/Info files:   

Typical Home APRS Station
Typical home setup

You can use this link to view APRS on RF traffic in the N Dallas and Collin County region.

  TNC's:   


  Software:   

Typical Portable APRS Station

Typical portable setup
For Resource Typing this configuration is part of CRF-DA. See Communications Resource Functions for more detail.

Typical APRS Tracker

Typical Tracker setup

  Trackers:   

Area recommended software settings

Note - Recently the settings have and are changing nationwide. These changes are an effort to reduce the number of duplicate and unnecessary additional transmissions of faulty set-ups. The following tries to reflect these new settings for the Dallas and Fort Worth and surrounding area. ie North Texas.

APRS Path Settings

  • RELAY – Only use as first entry in path (No longer recommended - Do not use - Digi's are being programmed to ignore)
  • RELAY is being replaced by Wide1-1 (Should only be used in the first position)
  • WIDE – Should only appear once as first or second entry (Not Recommended)
  • WIDEn-n – Should only appear once as first or second entry
  • TRACEn-n –For temporary experimentation only (Also being phased out)
  • GATE – Means “gate packet to HF”
  • NOGATE, RFONLY – Mean “don’t gate to Internet”
  • TCPIP, TCPXX, qXX – APRS-IS only

    • Recommended Paths

  • Mobile – New = WIDE1-1, WIDE2-1 Old = RELAY,WIDE or RELAY,WIDE2-2
    • Within the Dallas/Fort Worth metroplex WIDE1-1 should suffice
    Within North Texas you should use WIDE1-1 or WIDE1-1, WIDE2-1
  • Portable – New = Same as Mobile Old = RELAY,WIDE or RELAY,WIDE2-2
  • Fixed – DIGICALL, DIGICALL,WIDE1-1 or DIGICALL,WIDE2-2
  • Digis – No path
  • Special Events – New = WIDE2-2 Old = RELAY or RELAY,WIDE
  • Airmobile – New = WIDE1-1 Old = WIDE or WIDE2-2
  • Balloons – New = WIDE1-1 Old = WIDE or WIDE2-2

    • Recommended Beacon Rates

  • Mobile – 3 minutes minimum, SmartBeacon preferred with 3 minute minimum
  • Portable – 10 minute minimum, 20 minute preferred
  • Fixed – 20 to 30 minutes
  • Weather – 10 minute minimum, 15 minute preferred
  • Airmobile – 5 minute minimum

    • These recommendations are a mix of the new N-n plan and those presented at the North Texas APRS seminar and were generally agreed upon by the attendees. These recommendations should be appropriate for the D/FW metropolitan area.(September 6, 2003)

    Links referenced by this page are not exhaustive of the APRS subject. A search engine will enhance your learning experience.

    Updated Content-
    9/06/2010

    APRS is a registered trademark of Robert Bruninga - WB4APR.

    We hope you find this information useful with your Public Service event, EmCom support and RACES/ARES operations.
    Last updated 9.06.2010