Burbank CDV
APRS Setup - APRS+SA
A guide to APRS setup
By David Fleming -- KG6SQU
The basic APRS+SA Setup
The first screen that comes up (shown below) is a little intimidating because it has little on it.
Just click on Setup, and then on main and the following screen will appear:
Most things will be obvious but, be sure on the line that says "Unproto To", put APS224 and WIDE2-2. This is the correct thing for California. It will be different in other areas of the country.
Latitude and Longtitude??
- Method 1: borrow a GPS unit, take it to your house and read what the GPS says
- Method 2: just start with what I have and change it until you find your correct position on the map.
- Method 3: go to maporama.com and fill in the information for country, state, city (or zipcode), and street address
- Method 4: go to mapquest.com, then click on maps, and then "Map by Lat/Long". Put in your best guess and see where you are. Then make corrections and try again. With practice you can get to the right place after a few minutes.
Where it says Port 1 TNC you will have to figure out which serial port you are plugged into. Trial and error works great if you don't know which is which. Some computers have a label by the connector, and some do not. It is usually either COM1 or COM2. Click on the down arrow next to the data field and the choices will be listed so you can select one of the choices.
You will need to purchase a registration unless you want to fill in these values each time. The software is free to download, and even use, but the registration is $15.00. Not a bad price for software as good as this. Besides, this money pays back some of the hard work that went into figuring out how to make this inteface work.
There is no "OK" button. Just exit this by clicking the "X" in the upper right corner and the information will remain. If you are not registered and you exit the program completely, you will have to re-enter the information again.
To register go to the APRS+SA site and click on Registration Form. You can either print it, fill it in, and mail it, or there is an FTP site listed in small print at the bottom of the form. I mailed mine in.
After the basic APRS+SA setup
Now you should be functional.
Before I go further, let me say one thing. There is NO good documentation for this software. There are a few websites that have a lttle information, but mostly I have figured out what I know by trial and error. That being said, let me continue ...
Go to the tab called Position2. Locate the Range in the bottom left corner. Change to 1000 (this number is in miles). If you are hooked up to the radio, the radio should be on 144.39 MHz FM. If the radio is receiving information and routing it to the software, pretty soon stations should start being listed on the screen as shown in the picture below.
Shown is the latitude , longitude, and speed of the station if it is moving. Also shown is altitude if it is transmitted, distance from you, and direction from you, as well as other assorted items. You can sort by any of these things by clicking on the header for that item.
If no information is showing up on the Position2 page, the data may not be coming from your radio for some reason (bad cable?). To see that things are normal otherwise, click on Commands on the top tool bar, and then choose Internet Connect. Your Position2 page should quickly start filling with stations. If not you have probably chosen a wrong port for your TNC. Try another port and see if the information starts pouring in.
Note there are other things tracked here besides positional data. There is weather information, telemetry, message passing (similiar to packet ... but the messages are short), etc. There is much more here than what would be used for tracking people or vehicles.
Setting up for Tracking
APRS+SA part:
First, select the Track tab (shown below). Then, in the Tracking List column, type in the stations you want to chat. You do this in one of two ways. Either double click on the stations you want in the Moving List, or type the name in the callsign field and press enter. In either case the name will appear in the Tracking List.
Next, click on "Commands" on the menu bar at the top, and then "Map Options". Go to the APRS tab. Check the "Include Track Lines" box.
Now click on "Commands" on the menu bar at the top, and then "Time Filter". Choose whatever time period you want to see for tracking. I choose 4 hours for the 4th of July event. This allowed me to "see" the entire event. If I wanted to turn off the track line temporarily to have a map that was more clear to read a street name, I would choose 0 hour for a "Time Filter", and then turn it back to 4 hours when I was done.
For the 4th of July event I also choose the "Zoom to Most Recent" check box, next to the track list. This allowed me to more clearly see each car independently of the other ... as it showed first one track, then the other. Each track will be a different color (until you run out of colors).
Mapping part:
There is only a little to say here.
The first thing is that ONLY Delorme Street Atlas USA, version 4 through 9 work with APRS+SA (as I mention earlier). The second is that there is nothing to do to have APRS+SA work with this Delorme mapping software, except making sure you turn on the mappping software. It is automatic ... which is nice.
Below is the APRS tracks for the 4th of July event of 2005. The Arson Watch cars started at the mesa top where the Burbank Fire Department helicopter pad is, above the Starlight Bowl. One car stayed on that side of I-5, near the Verdugo Hills. The other car was on the other side of I-5 for most of this event. Both cars returned to the mesa for the debriefing ... as can be seen.
David Fleming is the BEARS' APRS sysop and the contact for issues relating to APRS!
For more APRS information and/or help contact David Fleming at the following e-mail: BEARS-Packet@BurbankCDV.org
