www.dfwaprs.net

Last Updated: April 3, 2007

Welcome....

... to an unofficial APRS Home Page for North Texas! If you are a newcomer to Amateur Radio's Automatic Packet Reporting System, scroll down this page to learn more about this fascinating corner of ham radio. We've got the news on area activity going back to 1996, and links to other sites for all the software you need to get started.

See also our APRS Local Contact List and
Sign up for the Texas APRS Mail Reflector

North Texas APRS News

• Google Maps and APRS
  If you have not tried this, it's fun! http://gaprs.net/
• NorthTexas APRS Discussion Group Formed
  John, N5OOM, is hosting a North Texas APRS Discussion group on Yahoo Groups. To join, click here!
• Good old packet returns to 145.07
  (1/26/04) From Richard KB5JBV: "A few months back a group of us in Mesquite were lamenting the demise of the packet network in north Texas and we decided that it would be a good idea to have a usable network in place for emergency communications and traffic handling. Now we have a PBBS, three nodes, a Chatserver, one 170 watt Digipeater and we are working daily to add more stations to the network. The problem is that we do have a node in Rockwall but our westward and northward expansion has come to a stand still. We are focusing our efforts on 145.07 MHz at this time; we would be on 09 but there were no nodes or digis to be found, and there is a noise source in Mesquite that makes 145.090 not a good choice. I currently run a node, NTS PBBS, Chatserver over here in Balch Springs (SEDAL), I also run an HF board for sending and receiving NTS message traffic for north Texas." Let's drop in on 145.07 and give the guys a hi! Note: on 3/19/04, we moved the venerable Raytheon K5QBM-1 ESY digi from 145.09 to 145.07; hope that helps!

APRS News Archives: 1996-2005

Setting Your Unproto Path de WB4APR (please read!)

E-Mailing to the Internet....

You can send e-mail from APRS to the Internet! Thanks to our Internet connection (iGate) from KC5GOI, you can enter a short message from your mobile (or data h/t!) and have it delivered via the Internet. Here's how....

• Bring up the New Message form within APRS.
• In the TO field, enter EMAIL
• In the MESSAGE field, enter the e-mail address, a space, then a short message.
  e.g. "rcasey@startext.net Testing from the mobile"
• Once you transmit, the iGate should pick up the packet and it will be routed to WU2Z's server.  The server will then format the e-mail and send it out.  The server will attempt to send an ACK back to you.  If you get an ACK back you know your e-mail got delivered.  If you don't get an ACK, it may or may not have been delivered.  The system does not work 100% of the time, but often enough that it can come in handy!

Thanks to an KE9NA e-mail posted to the APRS SIG for the explanation.

What is APRS?

The Amateur Packet/Position Reportng System is a system developed by Bob Bruninga, WB4APR, which uses amateur radio to transmit position reports, weather reports, and messages among users. Through the use of a Global Postion Satellite (GPS) receiver, a radio modem and a ham radio, a radio position is beaconed, where it can be received by other users and plotted on a map.

The use of the system has expanded to include home stations, and hams in boats, aircraft, and bikes and even on horseback and on foot. APRS is often used to transmit weather data from home weather stations. APRS uses inexpensive off-the-shelf equipment and inexpensive software to produce a very interesting communications product that has been very helpful in search and rescue, public service event communications, and SKYWARN operation. PLUS it's a lot of fun! For more info, visit one of these links:

APRS Internet Resources

• TAPR SIG Home Page: the mother lode for APRS info. Sign up for the Internet mailing list (the digest version, to get succinct summaries rather than lots of individual messages), and download the latest software for DOS, Windows, Mac, Palm and Windows CE
• Garland RACES APRS Info Page: lots of info and references
• FINDU.COM: cool server to see APRS activity from the Internet. Use the format "wx.find.com/CALL" for weather stations (e.g. wx.findu.com/n5csu ) and "map.findu.com/k5qbm-2" for other types of stations. Click on the "Nearby stations" options on the resulting display page to see what's up in the area. A cool search page built from findu.com is the APRS Search Page.
• Live Texas APRS Map
• Bob Bruninga's home page: the "father of APRS" has a nationwide map of digis and gateways on-line. Alos teh Help files in APRSDOS give a great overview of APRS.
• North TX APRS User Group: the latest user group news from north Texas
• Texas APRS Mailing List: lots of good info on the Lone Star State's APRS activity, especially west Texas
• Minnesota APRS: great page and great database
• APRSWXNET: an APRS weather network that is affiliated with the National Weather Services Citizen Weather Observer program.
• Denton County ARA APRS Web Page: hosted by local digital guru Guy, KC5GOI; lots of great info
• A Very Questionable Home Page: Map of APRS freqs in in use nationwide
• Kansas City APRS Working Group: we see them via the gateway almost all the time
• ... and try a spin on the APRS Web Ring below!

Over to you....

Send us info on stations, digis, gates, and any other activities; I'll pass them on here. Together, we can encourage even more APRS activity in North Texas!

73 de Rich. n5csu

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E-mail via: n5csu@arrl.net