Automatic Packet/Position Reporting System

Tony Gutierrez pointed me at APRS, an Automatic Packet/Position Reporting System. ARPS is a real-time tactical digital communicatons protocol for exchanging information between a large number of stations covering a large (local) area. As a multi-user data network, it is quite different from conventional packet radio. There are many APRS applications, and I will get back to that later. First, here’s what Tony uses it for:
“I dont believe I can afford satellite internet, but I was psyched to find that I could use my amateur radio licence to broadcast my position to a web page map, and to recieve and send email while at sea. The position broadcasts are tracked by a site called findu.com which allows you to use your own web page to access numerous scripts that create a map of your boat’s position for your web page visitors.”