ISS APRS

I caught word that ISS was passing in a moment, so I tuned UV-PRO to 145.825MHz, the APRS digipeater on ISS. I heard packets from Pittsburgh, PA; Smyrna, DE, and Atlanta, GA. I tried to ping out my location a couple times, but it looked unheard according to https://ariss.net/.

iss  aprs  uvpro 

UV-PRO Firmware 0.8.0

The HT app presented the firmware update right away upon launching, so now I know it can do the upgrade. The first time I updated the radio, I used the older “BTech Programmer” app.

The update promises some fixes around

  • ack in in-built APRS,
  • TNC stability

I discovered in the app the setting: Radio -> ID Settings -> 3 Checkboxes (ID, Location, Check) could be turned off to get to “none” to disable post-TX noises, which is “PTT Release” in the radio.

Those settings kept gettign synced from the app to the radio, so now they’re set the way I want it to stay. I could have also disabled “Synchronous Signal Settings” in the app, but the mismatch seems like it would have been confusing.

Winlink through N3FYI

I connected up to Winlink through N3FYI’s gateway on 144.950MHz. using 1/4-wave antenna hanging in the tree. I also had set my APRS message to “Winlink”, so the Winlink server pinged me over APRS when I had a message. I’m not sure I could read the APRS message on the UV-PRO, though, since I let it sit too long. I had a message icon, but I couldn’t dismiss it.

SPARC Elmer Night: 2025-01-21

There were only 3 of us at the SPARC elmer night, but we were on the same page. I compared notes on packet/APRS and WoAD with KC3QEH, JJ. We both had these new Btech-based radios. Even on the hill, our HTs with small antennas didn’t pick up much inside the building. I tried an external antenna from another club radio and I started receiving lots of packets. Sending APRS messages worked under the Signal menu: KC3QEH-7:TEST MSG

Btech UV-Pro

Yet Another Radio

I got interested in AX.25 packet over RF, so the Btech UV-Pro immediately looked like an interesting jumpstart, when it got a firmware update that allowed it to operate as a KISS TNC over Bluetooth.

Application Driven

HT is the up-to-date app for interfacing with the radio. There’s a “BTech Programmer” app, but it is an older, branded version of HT.

Setup

In the radio, I’d set “General” -> “Digital” -> “Format” = “APRS”, but the HT app kept switching it back to “BSS” any time it connected to the radio. It would never let me set “APRS” until I “verified” my ham radio callsign. It wants to do it by sending your license info to some chinese site – no thanks. Instead, I used a web app to generated an APRS code that worked in the HT app.

I enabling digital mode in radio to make it periodically beacon my APRS location. I set it to a fixed channel for sending APRS. Only the HT app seems to be able to set the beacon text for APRS.

I can send messages from radio by prefixing the message with the recipient:

KC3WWC-7: hey

TNC KISS Mode

I installed WoAD on Android, and enabled TNC KISS on the radio. I paired the radio to the phone via Bluetooth. I checked the Winlink RMS map on the website to find nearby packet gateways, and set the radio to the given packet frequency for the gateway I was trying to use. I configured a session for the callsign and SSID of the Winlink gateway, and started the session. Now it’ll send and receive queued email. There’s a log in WoAD that shows what it’s doing.

WoAD also has a terminal which can be used for BBSes, like KA3TKW. I connected there to see some messages and a BBS software from 1990!

APRSDroid can also talk to KISS TNC over Bluetooth. It’s a much nicer UI than the radio or HT app. Sometimes when switching apps, I needed to cycle power on the radio, but it doesn’t usually take too much to get it going again.