Greetings! New to the site. I've been a HAM for a little less than a year and have had the HT for all of this time. Been nearly exclusively operating on 2m repeaters to pass the 1:30+ commute each way. I commute to the Northern VA area from Charles Town, WV.
This week I bought the gps module for the MH-74 handset and thought I'd give APRS a try. I followed the manual setting it up, as well as everything I could find on this site. It appears that my HT has succeeded in sending out a message at least once. But, I'd think that it would get out more than just once!
Anyway, here's a couple more specific questions.
1 - Months ago, I reprogrammed the internet key to display the battery status, following instructions on pg 121. How do I undo that so that it manually transmits my APRS beacon? I did turn the battery saver features back to OFF.
2 - I have it set to transmit every 1 minute (as I saw recommended here for lower power HTs to have a chance to get through now and then). But I don't seen the TX light on the B button light up, so I don't believe it's actually trying, even though the S-meter isn't indicating that squelch is broken. Also, the "A12" symbol is blinking continually.
3 - If I have 144.390 set in the B band, set on Auto tx, but I have the A band active to a repeater, would/should it tx my beacon anyway, or do I have to have the B band as the active band?
4 - I'm beginning to look around for a mobile unit to mount in my truck so that I don't have to swap out the HT and mag mount antenna every time I move from my car to the truck. I'm considering the FTM-350R since I primarily use 2m anyway, but at least at the moment, APRS doesn't seem to be terribly useful for me. Maybe I'll switch thinking to an FT-857D instead, so I can consider adding HF to my operational experience. I would, however, like to figure out "what's APRS good for" before I give up on it (I know that's very simplistic, but that is sort of a general question in a nutshell).
Thanks everyone!
Bruce
This week I bought the gps module for the MH-74 handset and thought I'd give APRS a try. I followed the manual setting it up, as well as everything I could find on this site. It appears that my HT has succeeded in sending out a message at least once. But, I'd think that it would get out more than just once!
Anyway, here's a couple more specific questions.
1 - Months ago, I reprogrammed the internet key to display the battery status, following instructions on pg 121. How do I undo that so that it manually transmits my APRS beacon? I did turn the battery saver features back to OFF.
2 - I have it set to transmit every 1 minute (as I saw recommended here for lower power HTs to have a chance to get through now and then). But I don't seen the TX light on the B button light up, so I don't believe it's actually trying, even though the S-meter isn't indicating that squelch is broken. Also, the "A12" symbol is blinking continually.
3 - If I have 144.390 set in the B band, set on Auto tx, but I have the A band active to a repeater, would/should it tx my beacon anyway, or do I have to have the B band as the active band?
4 - I'm beginning to look around for a mobile unit to mount in my truck so that I don't have to swap out the HT and mag mount antenna every time I move from my car to the truck. I'm considering the FTM-350R since I primarily use 2m anyway, but at least at the moment, APRS doesn't seem to be terribly useful for me. Maybe I'll switch thinking to an FT-857D instead, so I can consider adding HF to my operational experience. I would, however, like to figure out "what's APRS good for" before I give up on it (I know that's very simplistic, but that is sort of a general question in a nutshell).
Thanks everyone!
Bruce
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