What is APRS Voice Alert ?
Ever got frustrated of not being able to contact a passing by station you just saw on APRS? APRS can also work as a nearby station radar and help you out with that.
Using the Retevis RT98 for APRS with voice alert
My TYT THD9000 started to exhibit some strange behavior, after transmitting it sometimes needs half a second to switch back to receive. So I was in the market for a new APRS radio and came across the Retevis RT98.
Buggy Icom ID-51 and ID-5100 Firmware – UPDATED
On November 6th 2019 and December 5th 2019 Icom released new firmware. According to Icom’s claim on their latest release it fixes issues with “other manufacturers” hardware and that there were no issues with Icom or Kenwood gear. Sorry Icom, this is plainly wrong.
Pi-Star: Scheduling DStar Reflector Linking and Unlinking
Do you want your repeater or hotspot to automatically connect to a specified reflector at a certain time? It is quite easy to do that, almost no command line stuff is involved.
Howto: Setting up and using D-PRS on Icom ID-5100
Setting up D-PRS on the Icom ID-5100 can be confusing for beginners as the radio has lots of options for D-PRS. Here are some step by step pictures an explanation I originally made for a friend, now for everyone.
XLX reflector direct connection
As i mentionned in this earlier post, with the XLX reflectors came some confusion for the users. A few months (almost 18 months ago actually) I modded ircDDBGateway so that it’ll be able to connect using commands like XLXxxxyL.
Howto: AX25 as a Systemd Service
In this article we’ll see how to run AX25 as a Systemd service, bringing the AX25 interface up on every boot and also putting the TNC into kiss mode. Having an AX25 interface allows you to share it among different applications like an APRS Digipeater or Winlink.
Putting Bluetooth into the Tinytrak 4
Byonics provides a Bluetooth add-on for the Tinytrak 4. While I love the TT4 I am not a huge fan of their TT4BT Bluetooth solution. It consists of a board with 2 DB9, no case nothing to protect and makes the whole thing clunky and bulky. Almost 4 years ago I came up with my own more slick and integrated solution and have been happy with it since then.
Why are APRS RX only iGates bad ?
Every now and then I keep on reading on social networks or forums how people set RX only igates up. RX only igates are just bad, really bad. I could just leave you with the following statement “APRS is a bidirectional network and RX only igates are not bidirectionnal. Period” But let me expose how they are breaking the network.
ircddb and quadnet, what is this all about ?
Following my previous article about the REF/XRF/DCS/XLX differences I will try to explain what are ircddb and QuadNet and what they are good for. There is some misunderstanding about what those things are.
DStar Life Hack: Is the station local on the repeater?
While listening to a QSO on a DStar repeater have you ever wondered how to know if the station you are listening to is local on the repeater or coming from a distant source (reflector, other repeater etc…)? BTW, I wrote this because I assume there are still people out there who are using repeaters instead of hot spots for their DStar operation.
APRS.fi is not APRS-IS
There is a widespread belief that aprs.fi is the internet backbone of the APRS network. It is not uncommon to read posts on social networks saying “I am connecting to aprs.fi with aprsdroid” or “I need a password for aprs.fi”. Let’s see how and why this is erroneous.
Compile and install the latest DStarRepeater in Pi-Star
After publishing my article about updating ircDDBGateway in Pi-Star I received messages about how to update DStarRepeater as Pi-Star also ships with a quite outdated DStarRepeater. Updating it will get you the ability to use your ID51+2 and ID4100 in terminal mode.
REF, XRF, DCS, XLX: what’s the difference ?
This is a question often raised by beginners to DStar : what is the difference between all those reflector types? I’ll try to give you an insight on this throughout this article.
Compile and install the latest ircddbGateway in Pi-Star
Pi-Star allows everyone to setup and run a digital voice Hotspot easily, its ease of use largely contributed to the late Hotspot invasion. However, the DStar software shipping with it is quite outdated. It is a version dating back from 2015 and it misses some nice features : Forwarding DPRS data to APRS for Kenwood THD74, multiple ircddb networks capability, G2 Nat Traversal to allow call sign routing without any port forwarding…
Oops! I did it again!
No, I am not writing a blog exclusively about the TYT TH9000D. However I actually managed to run into the dreaded gibberish characters issue for a second time and to recover the radio!
APRS with Tinytrak 4 and TYT TH-9000D
After a couple of frustrations (here and here) I have finally managed to get my TYT TH-9000D running quite well with my Tinytrak 4. After a few weeks using it I must say I am quite pleased with the result, the TH-9000D is sensitive and there are not many APRS frames I miss from the nearby digipeaters. I run it on low power (10W) which is plenty enough. So here it is finally, what should have been a quite straight forward mod from the beginning.
Solved TYT TH-9000D Gibberish Characters / Locked CPU Issue
Next episode of my TYT TH-9000D for APRS adventures (first episode here). Somehow I managed to run into the gibberish characters issue, after swearing a few minutes I went to my friend Google only to find out that people had the same issue. Some people even posting “contact me private i have a fix” like here and in the comments of this Youtube video. Such behavior is just childish, my 6 years old does this like “I have a secret but I won’t tell you” but she is 6 years old… Just share the information, spread the knowledge, we are hams !
And so I wanted to use a TYT TH-9000D for APRS …
I was in the market for another radio for my mobile APRS operations. After reading various articles (here and here) about the ability to add a D-SUB9 connector with all relevant signals for that matter. I ordered one, and it was there a few days later. Before modding the radio I wanted to program the relevant memory channels and test run it and there came the disappointment.
Upload compiled sketch to Arduino Due using command line
So I had my Arduino Due based MMDVM up and running on the hill top and wanted to upload new firmware to it without driving 30km up to the repeater site. The Raspberry Pi3 it is connected to is completely headless, no desktop, no vnc … only ssh. I tried stuff like forwarding the serial port over TCP, but no joy.
Motorola R100 Repeater goes digital
Introduction I came across a Motorola R100 repeater, those were very capable low to mid duty analogue repeaters in the mid 80s up to the 21st century, yet some of them are still in commercial use! What follows is more or less a memo on how I converted it for digital (Dstar and DMR) use and eventually analog/digital use.
Back Online
So it is finally here, after a server crash this summer I am resurrecting my website.
