Position no longer displayed on APRS.FI using Motorola radios on Brandmeister network

[Massimo Barbi]

Hello, me and other Italian radio amateurs are having a problem, using GPS with Motorola radios on Brandmeister network. In particular, for about a month now, using Motorola radios, our position is no longer displayed on APRS.FI, while up to 4 months ago the system worked correctly. The radios have not been reprogrammed and we have verified that they have not lost the settings for GPS and self-care BM. Moreover I contacted Brandmeister Support Team and they told me that they haven’t do any changes about this matter. This problem does not occur if we use Hytera radios, but only occurs when using Motorola radios.

 

Thanks for your support.

[Joni Kähärä]

Hi,

This may be slightly off-topic for aprs.fi, but anyway does your view of events in any way correlate with these observations about message counts for "APBM*":

https://servemedia.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/aprs-is-apbm-2025-04-14-1.png

As in, do you think the issue started around 2025-01-20? Note that these counts do not include APRS-IS packets which mention the source call in path, this is an attempt to ignore hotspots.

Here's a closer look at those packet counts by (approximate) prefixes in a very wide table:

https://servemedia.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/prefix/APBM-packets-per-prefix.html

If you focus for example on the IK..IZ group, then it can be seen that counts dropped dramatically around 2025-01-20. There could be other clues in that data for someone who undertands which Brandmeister master server each country mostly connects to, for example, and what the differences between those masters are.

I've asked APRS people, and they have looked and confirmed that it's not the APRS-IS system that's causing this. And your Motorola/Hytera observation would (maybe?) suggest that it actually is something in the Brandmeister system.

 

    Joni OH2EWL

[John Ronan]

Has something changed with the Repeaters/Hotspots you are working through.

I’m using a Motorola Radio, going through a MMDVM Repeater connected to Brandmeister and it is appearing on aprs.fi

Regards

John

EI7IG

On 12 Apr 2025, at 20:05, Massimo Barbi <ik4...@gmail.com> wrote:

Hello, me and other Italian radio amateurs are having a problem, using GPS with Motorola radios on Brandmeister network. In particular, for about a month now, using Motorola radios, our position is no longer displayed on APRS.FI, while up to 4 months ago the system worked correctly. The radios have not been reprogrammed and we have verified that they have not lost the settings for GPS and self-care BM. Moreover I contacted Brandmeister Support Team and they told me that they haven’t do any changes about this matter. This problem does not occur if we use Hytera radios, but only occurs when using Motorola radios.

 

Thanks for your support.

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[Massimo Barbi]

Hello Joni,

 

many thanks for your detailed analysis; it’s very useful for us, I forwarded it to the BM Support Team.

Probably yes, the January 20^th may be the starting date of the problem. I remember that I used GPS on my Motorola radio on January 6^th and it worked fine without any problem.

 

Many thanks again.

 

Best regards

Massimo, IK4SWW

[Heikki Hannikainen]

Hi,

To me it clearly seems like the data from some Brandmeister network users
is not appearing on the APRS-IS any more, and the research needs to focus
on the BM gateway side.

In general, whenever something is missing from aprs.fi, it's good to check
whether it is missing from the other APRS database web sites as well.

If it's not on aprs.fi, and it appears on the other sites, the problem
might be with aprs.fi (or its APRS-IS connection). Report to this group,
but do check the raw packets view (https://aprs.fi/?c=raw) first to see if
the packets are getting through, or if there is a clear decoding error
reported.

If it's not on the other sites, the problem is not on aprs.fi - report to
the source of the data (BrandMeister in this case).

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- Hessu

[Massimo Barbi]

Hi Heikki,

I checked raw data, but no data is present with my callsign since one week ago when I did some tests with Hytera radio and it worked fine as I wrote before. In this last week I have done a lot of test with Motorola radios but no raw data is present. I already informed BM teams of this issue.

Thanks for your support.

Best regards

Massimo

[Erik Finskas]

Massimo, which repeaters are you using and to which BM master they are connected to? Can you verify functionality of APRS location delivery through a hotspot connected to a different master? You could try Finland 2441 for example, I maintain the server so I could look at the logs if that also fails.

Best regards,

Erik OH2LAK

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/aprsfi/f5ee0bbd-f22a-4de8-a7ec-6e2ad22411b2n%40googlegroups.com.

[Massimo Barbi]

Dear Erik,

 

Thanks for your availability.

We use italian master server: BM2222; repeaters tested are: IR4UCO, IR4UX, IR4ZZH, IR4ZZU, IR4UCA, IR4AK, IR4UA plus my personal hotspot IK4SWW. With all these repeaters and my hotspot the problem is present (no position sign on aprs.fi).

I did some tests:

First Test:

At 2025-04-16 12:15:46 CEST I connected my hotspot (IK4SWW) to your master server: BM2441. Moreover for this test I modified my radio settings with your regional parameters: CAI network: 10, ARS ID: 244999, TMS ID: 244990.

My APRS position is displayed on aprs.fi with IK4SWW-7 !!!

 Second Test:

At 2025-04-16 14:06:41 CEST, I connected my hotspot to Italian Master server: BM2222, with Italian parameters programmed on the radio: CAI network: 12, ARS ID: 222999, TMS ID: 222999.

My APRS position IS NOT displayed on APRS.FI.

Third Test:

At 2025-04-16 14:21:44 CEST, I connected my hotspot to Italian Master  server: BM2222, with Finnish parameters programmed on the radio: CAI network: 10, ARS ID: 244999, TMS ID: 244990.

My APRS position IS NOT displayed on APRS.FI.

 

So the problem seems to be in relation at Italian master server BM2222.

 

Let me know your opinion.

 

Thanks again

Massimo

[Heikki Hannikainen]

Hi,

As the problem is not about aprs.fi, but rather about DMR positions not
being pushed to APRS-IS (and as a result, not being available on any APRS
systems), probably due to an issue with the BM gateway, it is off topic
for the aprs.fi group.

Please move the conversation to another forum that discusses BM issues.

This group is only for aprs.fi specifically - I generally reject all
messages which are clear client-side issues affecting posting positions
from another system to the APRS-IS, if it's clear it is not an aprs.fi
specific issue.

Thanks!

> https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/aprsfi/fcadf5ae-af8a-45d7-902b-da96a2728b1an%40googlegroups.com.
>
>

- Hessu

[Erik Finskas]

Yes, let's offload this topic elsewhere. I will contact you Massimo directly via email.

73,

Erik OH2LAK

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/aprsfi/343a2a78-2022-17ce-e18a-2f705494acea%40hes.iki.fi.