Agreed

Awesome! Glad this helped!

Thanks I was struggling to get this to work and now it does!

Glad you enjoyed this...good luck!

@@SevenFortyOne By the way, I am in Helena, MT. I saw MT plates on you vehicle in another video. 73 de N7JFF

Im in CT.. take a closer look at the plate. I collect them and use them as easter eggs in my videos. 73!

Congrats on winning the package from Jason! Glad to see someone local get it! I have to apologize as I don't recall our conversation on the bears machine. Feel free to give me a shout sometime. I monitor that machine quote a bit and am on during the weekdays between 4 and 4:40 during my commute.

Good luck Tom and thanks for watching!

@@SevenFortyOne Success! Got the AT878 running with the APRS, tracking on the map and all seems good. I may need to go back in and set the TX for a more frequent signal. Right now it transmits every 3 or 4 mins. Any suggestions? Thanks again for your help. KE0JVS

@@tomkeady1750 great! Glad you got yours working! If you are mobile then 1 minute or even 30s might be better depending on how many digis are in your area. If you are on foot, then maybe 5 minutes or so is good. Fixed stations are usually set to 10 or 20 min.

I was originally told that it was APZ878. This was shortly after I got My 878UV Plus in October of 2019. When did that change? I will will try that though, because I have been having trouble getting it to transmit on APRS since january. KC9SIO

The ssids are somewhat arbitrary. There is a website that explains it in better detail than I can...search for aprs ssids and you should find it

I don't think there is a definitive rule for the ssid. you can do a Google search for it and find a few different suggestions

@@SevenFortyOne thanks for the reply sir.

I have not experimented with trying to pick an igate. I've just let whichever igate can hear me report me.

The 6x2pro is said to be able to send APRS messages. Supposedly they're also working on being able to receive text messages as well.

Not yet, but a friend of mine used one of these to hit the ISS repeater

​@@SevenFortyOne Nice! I'm trying to get a walkie talkie radio that can cover DMR and analog radio at the same time for AMSAT Sats. thamks and 73s! TI2GBB

If you set your CTCSS Decode to 100.0Hz then you'll hear other APRS operators in direct range of you whom you can likely talk with on 146.52. It's called "Voice Alert". w4hfh.org/aprs-voice-alert-de-wb4apr

@@BosssyBear Why? I don't want to hear all the noise from this!

I'm still running 1.15

@@SevenFortyOne Thanks. If you would please, it seems the "Destination Callsign" and "Destination SSID" fields are critical for me to get Analog APRS to generate packets that APRS receivers like digi's and IGates's will recognize. Putting a digi/IGate call sign in does not seem to work. Instead I have to enter a set of characters that I see in actual APRS AX.25 packet for the Destination ID field, like "APU25N". You did not seem to have this problem. Thoughts? Thanks!

Yes - you can set it to transmit APRS packets at specified intervals

Update: all seems to be working today, not sure why it wasn't working yesterday. Or what if anything changed. Thanks for the video

Dunno if this is the cause, but the first time you turn on the GPS it takes longer to get a lock. I think it needs to download an almanac or something like that. Try giving it 5 or more minutes in a location with decent sky view.

Sorry, I don't know the answer

@@SevenFortyOne if you have a older 878uv and have firmware 1.25 or higher could you look under APRS let me know if you have Ana APRS SMS ? thanks, Ken

I just put 1.27 firmware on my 878uv. It does work sending Analog APRS messages now. I guess the APRS/BT board is only needed for receiving APRS not transmitting.

I don't think there is

Yeah, I hope they can as well. Now I have seconds thoughts. Maybe quite Yeasu FTs are not so bad after all? :)

I don't own and have never used the ft3dr so I really can't answer this. The ft3dr does not have DMR but does have C4fm...vice versa for the anytone. Other than that I don't know what the differences are.

From my research it seems that a side of mentioned DMR vs C4FM a FT radios are quite ie. Often too quite to use in car or noisy env. 878 can be very loud. 878 have great battery life with its 3100 mah.

And it seems that AT 878 can not send APRS messages ie. to email gateway or cellular phones sms gateway when there is no mobile phone coverage in your area for any reason :(

Sorry, I'm not sure.

I'm not sure ... I haven't tried anything like that myself

@@SevenFortyOne I was thinking if it did maybe you could send/RX APRS messages similar to the new 878uv2?

BTECH APRS-K2 is the cable I was thinking of using if it was compatible with the 878

I'm not in front of the software now but there is a "tx busy" setting someplace that prevents the radio from transmitting if it is receiving. If you can find that and turn it off it might work.

There is a setting to prevent transmission if the receiver is active. If that's on it might be the problem. I forget where that setting vis though....might be in the channel entry

@@SevenFortyOne if you can think of it please post. This is driving me crazy. I thought it might be something like that since it works when I am on a different channel.

The transmitting problem was fixed in at least the latest firmware 2.04

Im not positive but I think you could...I'm sure it would be quite difficult to do and require a serious amount of Patience

SevenFortyOne Welp, I got one and what a stupid radio. It won’t even go into VFO mode out of the box. People who say you can program it from the key pad may be right but you need a PC to get it into “amateur” mode to make it possible from what if found out. Now I’ll have to sell it off at a loss.

Can you find a friend or family member that would let you use a computer to program it?

SevenFortyOne if it was that easy maybe but it never is. Programing software always causes stress etc. I don’t want to download stuff on someone else’s PC. What really bugs me is the adds for this thing in QST show old men and grandmas smiling away as if it’s a total joy. It’s not. The firmware on the radio is 1.18 by the way. The latest stuff. I think it shipped in “professional” mode which ruins it for me right out the gate.

You need a computer to program this radio

Just get an APRS cable.

I've never tried it but I think with a decent antenna you could do it

Get on DMR TG 310014. Lots of guys there with that radio who do both digital and analog APRS with it. Digital APRS is the way to go in San Diego, as there are tons of open brandmeister repeaters that the 878 will report position to in the background while you monitor the DMR repeater, without you ever even knowing. It must be configured correctly in the CPS. It can also roam, and automatically connect to different repeaters automatically while you are mobile.

No, this is transmit only right now

@@SevenFortyOne fine.....regarding receiving you have one more video?

@@SevenFortyOne OK I got it! 878 does not receive, but I still have an issue with the TX. Even if it tx my Kenwood D700 does not decode. What's wrong? Thanks

Glad you enjoyed the video! 👍

Wrong. Latest Windows update messed with my audio again. Sorry, fine on non Win10 computer.

Found the problem. Since a Win10 update about three months ago, I get a feedback from my mic and if I leave the mic too close to speakers, even if I am not recording the feedback occurs and that is what was distorting your audio. Moved mic and problem gone. Argh.

@@hamrad88 No worries Tom - sorry to hear you are having trouble with your setup.

If you truly wanted to offer advice you would have phrased your comment something like this: "Hey, I noticed some mistakes in the presentation. Here are the things I think are wrong and some examples of what I think would work better for you. You can find additional resources on APRS in the following locations..." The passive aggressive insinuations aren't relevant to the point you are trying to make. Furthermore, they discourage new hams from looking to experienced hams like you for help in the first place. Did it ever occur to you that this callous and aloof attitude could be responsible for what you might consider bad operating and not the dumbing down of testing requirements or overenthusiasm as you asserted above? In other words, less experienced hams aren't looking for advice from people that are just going to give them grief for every little transgression. They'll figure things out themselves by making mistakes along the way or simply give up and find a hobby with people that support them instead of tearing them down.

@@SevenFortyOne I literally have over two dozen ARRL Elmer awards, do you know what those are? It's what the ARRL gives you to recognize your contribution in educating and assisting new hams, I'd venture a bet that I've helped more hams than you have. I've been honored with over a dozen lifetime memberships to amateur radio clubs throughout the country. And I used to give presentations and seminars at ham radio events. The problem is absolutely the dumbing down of the FCC tests. This has allowed for the infiltration of the wacky prepper and militia types into ham radio. At one time amateur radio operators were primarily employed in STEM fields, nowadays amateur radio is loaded with wacky right wing nut jobs who think they're gonna use amateur radio in the civil war they are prepping for. Did you watch the video's of the jan6th insurrection ? I lost count of how many insurrectionists we're dressed in combat ready tactical gear with bofang HT's strapped to the front of them, You can't turn on a ham radio anywhere without the buffoons on it sounding like Rush Limbaugh on steroids.... the only time they leave is during contests and even then you'll find these nits someplace complaining about the contesters.. To complicate matters KZfaq is loaded with bad information. Literally thousands upon thousands of amateur radio videos of self professed experts talking about something they have no idea what they're talking about... I haven't been on APRS in probably five years, I turn on my APRS gear and start monitoring the network and I'm appalled at what I see, I don't know how the people responsible for operating and maintaining the APRS network are tolerating it, I would say at least 40% of the package being transmitted are improperly configured leading to significant congestion on the network. For example there's an operator not more than a mile from my house who has an APRS beacon set up as a fixed station beaconing the same position all day long every 30 seconds and he's using the wrong path settings so his packet is being repeated by digipeaters 50 miles away... In other words he's using a path that you would normally use for a low power tracker rather than a fixed station and this is leading to significant congestion in the area from just one beacon. He probably got his information on how to set it up off KZfaq rather than actually reading the official documentation. So he set it up like a low power mobile tracker.. I can't figure out for the life of me why the digipeater owners haven't black balled him... The APRS AX25 protocol and the new paradigm is not that difficult to understand.. My point is but if you're gonna make a video teaching people how to do something then you wanna make sure that you're probably teaching them the correct way to do it. And I'd really hate to think that of all the comments in this thread that I'm the only person here that actually understands the APRS protocol.. Anyhow I'm sure you're a nice guy, and i might have been a little too harsh in my first comment. But it just seems to me that new hams aren't really interested in taking the time to actually learn anything, the number of times I see new hams post TLDR on answers to their questions is ridiculous.. Can you imagine a surgeon or pilot saying sorry TLDR when asked if they read the latest procedures on a surgery or new airplane LOL. That's one of the reasons why my posts are critical and harsh, i've found that being rude and insulting people is the only way to get this new bread of ham radio op to actually read anything longer than two sentences rather than simply posting TLDR By the way their is a specific paradigm to follow when configuring an APRS stations tocall and path www.aprs.org/aprs11/tocalls.txt

I use the term digital/analog to refer to the operating mode the radio needs to be in. The radio is capable of sending APRS data via DMR which is a separate process to use.

SevenFortyOne I agree but it caused confusion. APRS by definition is digital and it can do more than sudo DPRS and DMR-APRS.