Automatic Packet Reporting System

A few volunteer domestic canines were fitted with Garmin Alpha TT25 GPS dog tracking collars.

Several members also carried GPS-enabled Wysen VHF DMR portables, Garmin inReach units, and 2-meter band APRS trackers.

It was an opportunity to test the tracker technology as well as getting some live practice using SARTRAC.

Of particular note were the Garmin devices.

And he goes, oh, I'm going to throw up a beacon.

And I was like, what's that mean? And he had APRS set up.

So he had his iPad set up on his dashboard, and he threw up the APRS beacon.

And sure enough, 3 o'clock in the morning, this dude comes rolling in and knows exactly where we're camping.

And I was like, okay, I got to learn how to do that.

A lot of times with satellite stuff, you don't really think about it.

Like the ISS, you've got to track it.

You have a bunch of Russian birds that are just sitting over the United States that you can bounce APRS on all day long.

So you're not sharing exactly where you are.

But it's ambiguous, sorta like APRS ambiguity there.

Okay? There's my mobile repeater.

I have it set.

Implements and improvements.

Added FTX1, FTM310 to APRS model detection.

Okay.

Okay.

That impacted the operation of the 510 because we wanted to make sure that that update for the FTX-1 and the FTM-310 would show up correctly in an APRS operation.

Does that require manual change? No, it does not.

It didn't require us to go into the APRS manual and make a change.

It did not.

okay heard three repeats it says right there okay so we're hearing grapevine repeater one grapevine mobile these these two are right next to me and the nmtx rack repeater so we're going to drive a little bit closer to that one today and find out how far reaching it is but my point today okay so i've got it now i've got a message up there now we'll leave that on over here and of course i heard myself on the low mesh, which is right next to it.

Of course you would, why wouldn't you? So we're gonna put that back on the APRS screen.

So my point today is there are five, six, seven different repeaters up right now in this small area, Grapevine, Colleyville, Southlake.

lewisville flower mound we had a guy talking to us sam dfw's his name on meshcore and he was up in flower mound the other day where the dfw ham expo was and he was like yeah i'm at this this these cross streets and i'm like that's that's a stretch right there we put a new coax on the grapevine one repeater On top of the Marriott building next to DFW Airport, it's good in good reach.

The UV Pro, I'm going to go through all of these here in a minute.

The UV Pro is usually on my belt because it's running APRS 24-7.

The Kenwood radio will be shut down and put in the bag as I'm driving because I don't need an HT while I'm driving.

I have mobile

I'll link the video I made about that device up here in the description somewhere.

And this is my UV Pro right here.

This is what I'm running APRS on every day.

Every day I run this on APRS.

Think about what your normal activation looks like and then see where you can kind of slightly make a tweak or turn the knob or make it more of an offline type mode.

Like we all know Jason, KM4, ACK, big APRS guy.

APRS is very much a offline mode, doesn't require internet.

I mean, it's great to have APRS-FI, but in essence, you can do it without it.

You can lose a lot of the apps that will run solely on RF.

You know, thinking along those lines, when you're talking, you know, in the HF world, like, can you use HF to, you know, somehow spot yourself? SodaMate is like an example of that.

There are other apps out there that will do you, you know, through APRS that you can actually do that.

You can do VAR or HF if you, you know, so inclined to be able to, you know, get yourself spotted.