2 ENJOYING APRS (by BOB BRUNINGA, WB4APR)
15
2.11 Voice Repeaters and Club Info
Besides alerting others to the voice monitoring frequency of other APRS operators, the
addition of the Frequency field to APRS opened up a whole new application of local
information for the mobile operator. Now everywhere the APRS operator travels, he can be
alerted to the recommended traveler’s voice repeater in any area he was passing through.
This is accomplished by not only having every digipeater beacon its position and availability,
but also by beaconing this local frequency object.
These frequency objects show up in the station list of all mobile operators in range as shown
below in the TM-D710A/E, TM-D710GA/E and TH-D74A/E front panels:
On the TM-D710GA/E station list as above, not only are the two stations of AB9FX nearby,
but also his current VOICE operating frequency is visible.
Also, we can see that this radio is in OPERATING range of three voice repeaters that are
also identifying themselves as objects on APRS as the locally recommended voice
operating channels.
The TH-D74A/E on the right has two ham calls, two tactical calls and one repeater object.
It is easy to find these nearby frequencies in the huge station list by first doing a SORT.
This brings all the numeric objects (in this case, frequencies) to the top of the list as shown
on the TM-D710GA/E on the left.
The standard for these frequency objects also includes Tone, Shift, and bandwidth for
instant tuning. In addition, they can include the weekly on-air voice net times as well as the
monthly club meeting dates as shown below, all in a single periodic beacon object:
Although the information appears a bit cryptic, the fact that all voice repeater objects use this
same standard format makes it easy for the operator to understand the meaning.
In this case, the local recommended voice repeater in this area is the 147.105 MHz
(Maryland) repeater with a Tone of 107.2 Hz.
