[aprssig] APRS Voice Alert Explained, in short

Joseph M. Durnal joseph.durnal at gmail.com
Thu Jul 31 18:20:52 EDT 2008


Yep - last night I tallked to Bob, WB4APR, and later, Ryan, a former
co-worker from several years ago.  Worked out great!

73 de Joseph Durnal NE3R

On Thu, Jul 31, 2008 at 6:13 PM, Keith Stevenson <ki4ybq at ki4ybq.net> wrote:
> Joseph,
>
> Thanks for the summary.  I think you netted it out very well.
> Hopefully more people will adopt both voice alert and putting their
> voice frequency into their APRS status text.
>
> For those who haven't tried this, it really does work!  Over the last
> few weeks I've made some very nice contacts that were facilitated by
> APRS voice alert.  In both cases I knew that someone was nearby
> because I heard their APRS packet.  I caught VE7MMG while he was
> driving cross-continent on his way back to British Columbia, and this
> morning I had a QSO with KC5LAA who was passing through on his way
> from New Orleans to Ontario.  Not bad at all considering I was driving
> around home in Louisville Kentucky!  Neither of these QSOs would have
> happened without ARPS letting us know that each other were there.
>
> 73,
> Keith Stevenson, KI4YBQ
>
> On Thu, Jul 31, 2008 at 5:29 PM, Joseph M. Durnal
> <joseph.durnal at gmail.com> wrote:
>> I've come across a lot of hams who don't have a good understanding of
>> APRS Voice Alert.  While Bob Bruninga, WB4APR explains it well on his
>> voice alert page, I'll try to explain it in just a few lines.
>>
>> Voice alert is essentially adding a 100hz CTCSS tone to the
>> transmitted APRS packets on 144.39 (US), just set the tone as if you
>> needed it to access the repeater and setting the radio to tone squelch
>> (CT on the D700) and leaving the volume on the data channel up.  When
>> a packet is received with the 100hz tone, you'll hear it on the radio,
>> and you should also see the call on whatever APRS display you are
>> using.  The radio will still decode packets that don't have the 100hz
>> tone, you just won't hear them.  This works with most rigs/tncs that
>> don't rely on the speaker output to feed audio to the TNC.
>>
>> The full details can be found:
>> http://aprs.org/VoiceAlert3.html
>> http://www.ew.usna.edu/~bruninga/VoiceAlert3.html
>>
>> Even hams that don't use APRS can take advantage of voice alert, just
>> listen to 144.39 with your tone squelch set to 100hz.  When an APRS
>> mobile is in the area, you'll hear them, and you can give a general
>> call for APRS voice alert stations.
>>
>> Once contact is made on the voice alert channel, the conversation
>> should be moved to another frequency to keep the channel clear for
>> packets, and to keep the packets from crashing your QSO.
>>
>> One thing that makes voice alert less useful is when the tone is
>> transmitted with the packet, but nobody is listening (unattended,
>> volume down, etc).  That is one disadvantage to the D710, it isn't as
>> easy to turn off voice alert once you have it on, which leads to folks
>> just turning down the volume.
>>
>> I hope this helps spread the word regarding APRS voice alert.
>>
>> Thanks & 73 de Joseph Durnal NE3R
>>
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