New Ham Radio

[chaos]

I went fishing on the South Platte today. The goals were to get on the water and also to send an APRS message on the river to my wife to see if I could send it. The fishing was tough but did land a nice rainbow.

I sent a message to my wife. She did receive it on her Phone as an SMS message but she deleted it by accident and didn't know when she received it because she was out for a run and didn't have her phone. We'll have to try that experiment again.

What is curious is I came back to look at my APRS track attached. The track doesn't go all the way to the river. I was tuned to APRS most of the day so going up and down the river, there is no track but there was lots of little noises and beeps going on my radio.

Any thoughts on what I did wrong?

 

[lars]

That is cool.

I went fishing on the South Platte today. The goals were to get on the water and also to send an APRS message on the river to my wife to see if I could send it. The fishing was tough but did land a nice rainbow.

I sent a message to my wife. She did receive it on her Phone as an SMS message but she deleted it by accident and didn't know when she received it because she was out for a run and didn't have her phone. We'll have to try that experiment again.

What is curious is I came back to look at my APRS track attached. The track doesn't go all the way to the river. I was tuned to APRS most of the day so going up and down the river, there is no track but there was lots of little noises and beeps going on my radio.

Any thoughts on what I did wrong?

 

[gahi]

To view the whole track in aprs.fi you need to adjust the track tail length

 

[chaos]

Awesome! Thank you!! I thought I had done something wrong. Perfect!!!

 

[gungriffin]

How often does the APRS sample your GPS location?

 

[gahi]

It depends on how you set it up, it can a specified time interval, or based off turns and speed. In busy areas, you want it to transmit only as often as needed so you don't jam up the frequency

 

[gungriffin]

It depends on how you set it up, it can a specified time interval, or based off turns and speed. In busy areas, you want it to transmit only as often as needed so you don't jam up the frequency

That is great. I love how adjustable most of these radios and features are. I just picked up a 400XDR from HRO. It was on sale and there was also a rebate! Now to pass my Technicians test....

 

[DaveInDenver]

How often does the APRS sample your GPS location?

What TNC/tracker/software are you using? Typically APRS position updates depend on the type of station you're running. At home you might send one every 30 minutes or more. A fixed portable might be periodic every 120 seconds. Mobile stations usually implement Smart Beaconing, which makes the beacons interval speed and direction sensitive. At high speed but constant heading they might be every 5 or 10 minutes but turning often they might as much as every 30 or 60 seconds.

ETA: I just saw you have a FTM-400, which does implement Smart Beaconing AFAIK. If you Google APRS and Smart Beaconing you'll see what parameters you should use to get a sufficient number without flooding the network. But even if you do most digipeaters and APRS-IS knows to ignore and not repeat all packets if they come too frequently. That just consumes bandwidth locally, though.

 

[gungriffin]

What TNC/tracker/software are you using? Typically APRS position updates depend on the type of station you're running. At home you might send one every 30 minutes or more. A fixed portable might be periodic every 120 seconds. Mobile stations usually implement Smart Beaconing, which makes the beacons interval speed and direction sensitive. At high speed but constant heading they might be every 5 or 10 minutes but turning often they might as much as every 30 or 60 seconds.

ETA: I just saw you have a FTM-400, which does implement Smart Beaconing AFAIK. If you Google APRS and Smart Beaconing you'll see what parameters you should use to get a sufficient number without flooding the network. But even if you do most digipeaters and APRS-IS knows to ignore and not repeat all packets if they come too frequently. That just consumes bandwidth locally, though.

Ha ha holy cow I can just barely understand what you are saying! It is all starting to make more sense as I delve into learning from the fire hose. I will definitely be showing up early to a meeting or a run and asking for help when I get this installed. Also, 30-60 seconds is quite an impressive refresh rate.

 

[chaos]

Take it in baby steps. I'm still taking baby steps to try to figure things out. The manual can be fairly daunting. But GV27 and Dave have been a really, really big help! In my notes, I started first 1) Install 2) Hear someone 3) Talk to someone 4) Turn on APRS 5) Transmit APRS 6) Send a message through SMSGTE 7) Receive it 8) Add Repeaters

All baby steps!

 

[DaveInDenver]

Also, 30-60 seconds is quite an impressive refresh rate.

It's unlikely that positions will make it to the Internet that fast but you may be attempting to transmit them that frequently none-the-less. In reality you're lucky to get one to show on APRS-IS every few minutes.

Usually roughly every 2 minutes considered a high rate for transmitting but sometimes you'll see parameters set down to be as low as 45 seconds when a ham thinks sending tons of beacons is necessary. The reality is using Smart Beaconing is better when you get it set to transmit when something interesting happens.

And yeah, man, Google is your friend!