•
“Path”
– APRS path (default value of WIDE2-2 will allow your device to be
digipeated by most nearby digipeaters), if you leave this field empty, beacon will
be sent without path,
•
“RF[min]“
– beacon transmit rate to RF (expressed in minutes), beacon will not
be sent if this field is set to 0,
•
“Message“
– APRS packet information field content. Beacon will not be sent if this
field is left empty.
To properly generate a message field structure, please read the information on the APRS
packet format. I recommend the website of the Polish APRS Group's founder Andrew
Bartosz SP3LYR, where all is nicely described (in Polish): http://www.aprs.pl.
Example beacon packet:
@<date>z<lat>/<long>-PLXDigi U=<volt>V
•
@ - APRS data ID,
•
<date>z – time and date in the format DDHHMM (day/hour/minute),
•
<lat>/<long> - station latitude and longitude,
•
„-” - together with “/” sign between <lat> and <long> defines a station symbol
(House in this example), please refer to the table of symbols at
http://aprs.pl/ikony.htm,
•
PLXDigi U=<volt>V – beacon information field, <volt> will be replaced with input
voltage reading.
As you can see in the above example, PLXDigi allows to use some special strings, which
are automatically replaced with corresponding values:
•
<date> - inserts current date in DDHHMM (day/hour/minute) format,
•
<lat> - inserts your stations latitude defined in “Radio” Tab,
•
<long> inserts your stations longitude defined in “Radio” Tab,
•
<volt> inserts your current input voltage read by the device.
After inserting corresponding values example beacon packet will look for example like
that:
@100214z5221.60N/01653.63E-PLXDigi U=12.1V
Important note: I sometimes see that users try to replace special <date>, <lat>, <long>,
<volt> strings with direct values. You don't need to do that. If you set for example
“<date>” string in your beacon, current date will be placed instead of this string. The
same for “<lat>”, “<long>”, and “<volt>”.
If you are new to APRS or if you are running the device for the first time, you can leave
all the options as default. By default, the device will send standard beacon packet with
time, latitude, longitude and current voltage reading both to RF every 5 minutes. It
should make your station appear on the map on aprs.fi.
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