[aprssig] Text Messaging Radios now

Robert Bruninga bruninga at usna.edu
Tue Feb 10 10:39:28 EST 2009


DTMF Messaging works!

Took me a while, but I can now finally send DTMF messages
manually from any radio and have them display on the
FT11/41/51, TH78 series radios.  I have updated my docs to show
how:
www.aprs.org/FT51-TH78.html 

It needed the PAGE codes first to serve as a header to tell the
radio who the message is coming from and who it is addressed to.
So the format is really:

TTT*FFF
#MMMMMM...#

Where TTT is the TO-ID, FFF is the FROM station ID and MMMM...
Is the message.  Each station's own TO-ID whould be his own
suffix.  For example, WB4APR is APR which becomes "277".  Then
for APRS, we have defined 6 GROUP codes 991 through 996 for
FIXED, MOBILE, WEATHER, STATUS, DIGI's, and MESSAGES.  This way,
the recepient can select or opt-out of any of these data groups.

So setting up one of these radios to receive messages requires:
1) Putting in your own ID ###
2) Putting in the six GROUP codes above
3) Entering PAGE mode.

THen from any other radio, you can send messages manually to
that radio.  To send your callsign, just put 996*FFF (where FFF
is your ID) into the DTMF memory of any DTMF radio and put any
intended messages #MMMMMMMMMM# into additional memories.  For
example
"CALLME" is #2C2A5C5C6A3B#
"WB4APR" is #9A2B42A7A7B#

For troop number "995" with a score of "95" would be
"995 95" or #9951C95#

It works!  Find out who in your club has these radios and put
one at Net Control for your next operation.  Figure out ways to
use this.

Bob, Wb4APR

> -----Original Message-----
> Thanks for looking at this.  As you can see, I am rapidly
trying
> to catch up on my docs and ask for help in refining this new
> application.  for the last several months of talking about
these
> radios, I was only narrowly thinking of these radios in a
> two-way only message excange.  And I was completely
overlooking
> the more readily useful special-event scenario where most data
> goes into the Net control, and so this vastly multiplies the
> functionality for these radios since ANY DTMF HT can transmit
to
> them, not just other models of the same radio.
> 
> > Also I [was] hoping to see the DTMF key 
> > algorithm used by these radios, but it 
> > fell short just a bit.
> 
> Yes, I need to update those web pages now with this new
> excitement to make it easy for people to synthesize a message
> from their existing HT for display on those HT's.  I also need
> to test this, since I found an old TH78 and just need time to
> work on this..
> 
> I am hoping some other people with these radios will help us
out
> here...
> 
> Thanks
> Bob, wb4apr
> 





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