Beacon packets not heard

[Dave Metz]

Hi there,

I’m a newbie to amateur radio and aprs but I plugged in my btech aprs k1 into my iPhone 11 (using the lightning dongle) and baofeng UV-5R, and I can’t seem to get it to send or receive beacon packets. I can see that by sending a recorded message through the cable that it trips the baofengs PTT and registers as a tx. I tried to listen to the beacon sound from the app through the iphones speakers, (I understand that can talk to the radio that way in a pinch) and all I get is silence. My station seems to be connecting to aprs.fi web, but not through me radio. Any advice would be much appreciated.

Thanks,

Dave

[Heikki Hannikainen]

On Tue, 3 Nov 2020, Dave Metz wrote:

> Hi there,I’m a newbie to amateur radio and aprs but I plugged in my btech aprs k1 into my iPhone 11 (using the lightning

Hi,

Just to confirm the basics:

* Go to More -> TNC DSP Modem -> Selct a TNC

* Select the "aprs.fi Software Modem" to select the DSP modem

* The "Extra Features" subscription for this is required, as described in
the app description: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/aprs-fi/id922155038

* When the sound card modem is enabled, you'll see an oscilloscope showing
received audio. Tune volume level on radio so that it doesn't go to the
red area (level isn't otherwise critical, it can be fairly low, as long as
it doesn't overdrive and become distorted)

* Tune the transmit audio level by adjusting volume on the iPhone

* Be sure to put the iPhone to a do-not-disturb/silent mode so that your
phone call alerts don't end up being transmitted...

* In the Beacon view, enable beaconing via TNC to transmit via the
TNC/modem instead of the Internet

- Hessu

[Curt Thue]

I have used a similar setup, except with Android/APRSdroid.

The UV-5R needs to be configured for VOX, the SQL needs adjusting, I set the radio volume to 75%, and the phone's various volumes to max.

If you are seeing your station on APRS.FI without transmitting, I suspect your software is configured to transmit via the network, and not RF.

---

From: apr...@googlegroups.com <apr...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Dave Metz <metz...@gmail.com>
Sent: Tuesday, November 3, 2020 3:20 PM
To: aprs.fi <apr...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: [aprsfi] Beacon packets not heard

 

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[MJ Inabnit]

Good morning Dave,

I wish these radios would vanish from ranks, they are terrible radios
with serious spectral problems (failures). ARRL labs released
statistics on a huge range of amateur HT's and it was stunning to
observe how bad these radios are. Here's a quick youtube video if you
are interested:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xZN9k_QIHVU

Another problem with this radio is the massive amount of time it takes
for the radio to go from receive to transmit, and again from transmit to
receive. It really just about guarantees the radio will miss the packet
from your nearest node after your system tries sending a packet.

Good radios will publish the TX and RX time and generally work quite
well with this type of setup.

Anyway, good luck to you!

73
j

--

wishing you well
Jaye, ke6sls--via the toshiba w/thunderchicken

[Heikki Hannikainen]

On Wed, 4 Nov 2020, Curt Thue wrote:

> I have used a similar setup, except with Android/APRSdroid.
> The UV-5R needs to be configured for VOX, the SQL needs adjusting, I set the radio volume to 75%, and the phone's various
> volumes to max.

The headphone output is quite loud / high level - if you set the volume to
max, it is quite surely distorting the microphone input of the radio. This
will make the signal decoding difficult on the other end.

Please adjust the volume so that the transmit audio level / deviation is
good. Preferably with a service monitor, but if you don't have access to
one, listen to your signal using another receiver and compare your
transmitted audio level with other stations already on the channel.

The received audio should not be as loud as the noise coming from an
unsquelched receiver when a signal is not present.

- Hessu

[Heikki Hannikainen]

I'd like to suggest that we concentrate on this forum to the aprs.fi
software, and discuss the various radios and their performance elsewhere.

I know these are not great radios, and a BLE TNC would be much better than
VOX-operated DSP modem.

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>

- Hessu

[Dave Metz]

Thanks! I think it’s working. I’ll confirm later