Help with aprs / ham radio / yaesu vx-8dr

[Eric B.]

Hi all. I'm looking for help configuring and using aprs on a yaesu vx-8dr. I have the gps unit attached and working via the optional microphone and it is successfully reporting gps coordinates on the radio display. I have tried to configure aprs but i don't see any forwarded to the internet. I do not see any local aprs stations under "stations" Would love to hear suggestions from people familiar with this topic.

Things I have tried so far:
Changing stock antenna to Diamond car mount
Reading the manual; using initial settings and frequency as instructed.
Searching Google, viewing pages and YouTube related information
Wildly changing all gps/aprs settings to see if anything helps, and occasionally resetting all settings, to make sure i don't leave the radio wildly mis-configured.

[Guan Yang]

Hey,

A group at Hack Manhattan has been experimenting with APRS. Big lessons from our efforts are that 2 meter propagation is horrible in NYC because of all the buildings and noise, good antennas are important even on 2 meter in close range, and there's absolutely no APRS traffic in the city, especially since the K2MAK digipeater We rarely hear anything at all except under ideal conditions.

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[KC2PED]

hi Eric
I have the VX-8DR and never got it to work until someone who knew GPS set it up for me
I also have its big brother, the FTM-350AR, that I was using as a base station and found that only about 25% of my beacons were received by anyone
kCRA is going to be holding every other month Elmer 101 sessions but they will not be beginning until the first Tuesday in May and I imagine you want your radio to work before then
KC2PED, Charlie
Let me know direct at callsign at gmail since I get the digest so mail is always a day late
If you are going to be at Resistor on Craft Night I can bring my VX-8DR in and we can go through the menus line by line
I could even make a special trip to Brooklyn on a Monday for Laser Night if that would be easier

[John P. Reardon]

Hi Eric-

I've had some success with APRS over the last couple weeks. Initially, I had the same experience as you. Although, I did receive some packets, so a few stations appeared on my station list. Even after an antenna upgrade, I wasn't able to hit a digipeater from inside the apartment. However, I was able to get to N2MH in NJ while standing outside. 

Perhaps you should double check your settings and try again from outside somewhere.  If you can get a fairly open view towards N2MH in West Orange, you might have some luck. Email me if you want some help troubleshooting or verifying settings. 

As Guan said, there's not a lot of activity on APRS in the city, which is too bad. I wonder if there would be more activity if there were a couple more digipeaters around?

jp

[Eric Berger]

Thank you both.  It turns out that I was actually putting out signals successfully from my car.  Once I attached the external magnetic car antenna,  I was able to check later and see my callsign on the aprs map, so I guess I got the settings right and it was probably just that (notoriously bad) stock antenna – even walking around outside of my car it never made any aprs connections.  Still didn’t see any other stations while I was in the car, and I’m still considering the Diamond antenna upgrade for 2m/70cm to replace the stock duck. It’s a quad band radio but I hear that NYC is mostly 2m and 70cm, so that would allow me to upgrade without having to get the ‘longest’ replacement whip.  Maybe then aprs would work as a handheld.

 

Thanks again for answering,

-e