APRS is a system developed by Bob Bruninga, WB4APR, which uses amateur radio to transmit position reports, weather reports, and messages between users. My contribution is the internet portion of the system. Although ham radio is capable of digital long distance communications, it tends to be slow and unreliable, especially when compared to the internet. I've written software to take the data received locally and make it available via the internet, to be displayed with a Java applet.

What you are looking at here is a number of position reports from amateur radio operators in South Florida. At times you may see vehicles, planes, or boats moving around town. These vehicles obtain their location using the satellite system known as GPS, and transmit that position for others to follow. There are also a few weather stations visible on the map. Click on one of these to see their current weather conditions.

You can select different maps from the menu at the bottom of the applet, zoom in and out, and scroll with different keys. See the list below for details. For more info on APRS, check out the APRS Virtual Meeting. For information about how to get started in APRS, try this link.

You can see a replay of the 1998 Dayton Hamvention activity here.

(Be patient...the applet, map and data files are over 200k, so depending on your connection speed it may take a couple of minutes to load.)

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