callpass seems to be a password u need to use the program APRSDROID working great on my cellphone now
callpass seems to be a password u need to use the program APRSDROID working great on my cellphone now
I use APRS when travelling, particularly out in the boonies. My family knows how to track me using findu.com, whether I am on the radio (K0RGR-7) or my cellphone (K0RGR-5). I travel out in the boonies fairly often - at least the more traveled parts of the boonies, and I use a Kenwood TMD710. It's pretty amazing where I can and can't find APRS with my 50 watts and a decent mobile antenna. Most of the southern half of Minnesota, and some areas of the north country are covered. I seem to be connected to APRS everywhere in Iowa, even where there are no voice repeaters or cellphones.
Going from here to Denver, I have APRS until at least North Platte, NE, and then pick it up somewhere on I76 in Colorado. Going west on I-80, it's surprisingly good in much of Wyoming, then, it gets more interesting. Once you are out of the mountains in Utah, APRS is solid well into Nevada on I-80, and I found very few places on either I-80 or U.S. 50 in Nevada with no APRS. It's pretty solid in I-10 until you get to western New Mexico, where you lose it until you're closer to Las Cruces. Then, it's there in El Paso, and disappears east of there to about 100 miles from Austin. East of there, it's solid to Florida.
One time, we were driving on I-80 in a desolate part of Nevada, looking for a place to spend the night. My APRS display lit up - it was my brother in California sending me a message about a great motel in the next town ahead of us.
I don't see as many information beacons as I used to on APRS. For a while there, many radio clubs and individuals would send regular beacons with local repeater information. The Kenwood radio has a QSY function will QSY to the repeater frequency in the beacons at the push of a button. It is nice when you're in an area to see these 'advertisements' for the active local repeaters. There are also various kinds of bulletins, WX alerts, etc., sent out this way. I don't text while driving, and APRS messaging is exactly like texting. So if you send me a message, you'll have to wait until I can stop to answer. Since I don't do it often, I always have to figure out how to do it, too, which takes a while.
The last three episodes of Ham Nation featured a project of building a Raspberry Pi - based packet TNC that you can use to run the Xastir APRS software. For $80, $40 for the RPi and $40 for the TNC kit, that's a pretty good deal, and you end up with a full function Linux computer running Xastir, or another packet radio program. I have one RPi dedicated to DSTAR now, I'm thinking seriously about building one of these for APRS, too, and just let it monitor the local activity and send messages to my friends.
LOL Got my verifcation mail this morning. Yep Thats the code they gave me! Too funny!Originally Posted by KC2UGV
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W7XF-5
Encrypt everything. Even if you have nothing to hide. It increases the noise floor.
I don’t recommend mixing chainsaw repair duties with drinking. I have never seen a chainsaw loose that battle.
What does your street name mean?
Loosely: The Little One
Encrypt everything. Even if you have nothing to hide. It increases the noise floor.
I just found a very big FLAW with the APRSDROID program. Whatever U do, DON'T leave it on!!
I fully charged my Phone yesterday afternoon, and ran the APRSDROID. It ran the pjhone to STONE DEAD just overnight!!!! I know the GPS is on, but the program itself must use a TREMENDOUS amount of battery power. Now, I will only turn it on briefly!!
A loosely little what ??
I noticed the same thing. I found a little something that helps a bit.
Go to Preferences -> Location Source.
Select "Periodic GPS/Network Position"
Once that is set then select Locations Settings.
Select Minimum Update Time and set to how often u want to have the software update your posit.
Select Minimum Update Distance and set that to how far u want to travel before updating. Set to 0 if u want to disable it
I have mine set to 15 minutes and Distance turned off. I noticed a moderate improvement over having the "Smart Beaconing" turned on. SB keeps the GPS and your internet constantly active and thats a batt killer as well as a data drain. Can be painful if you're on metered bandwidth.
I havent played with it long enough to see HOW big a difference it makes but i did notice some change. I also pretty much run with my phone plugged in while I'm driving the truck so my experience might be a but different then yours.
Hope that helps. Let us know if it does
Last edited by W5BRM; 08-07-2013 at 05:46 PM.
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