What is APRS in Amateur Radio?

What is APRS in Amateur Radio?

APRS stands for Automatic Packet Reporting System, invented by WB4APR in 1992. APRS serves as a digital communications information channel for Ham radio. A single national channel is there in each country with an active APRS system. Same channel may be there is more than one country as well. APRS gives the mobile ham a place to monitor for 10 to 30 minutes in any area, at any time, to capture what is happening in ham radio in the surrounding area. Announcements, bulletins, messages, alerts, weather and a map of all this activity which may include frequencies, satellites, nets, meetings and Hamfests. The systems also supports global callsign-to-callsign messaging by the APRS Internet System.

Digipeaters form the backbone of the APRS system. They use store and forward technology to retransmit packets received from the transmitting stations. Packets move from digipeater to digipeater propagating outward from their point of origin. All stations within the range of the digipeater can receive the packets. IGate, the APRS Internet Gateway hears most of the packets and route them to the Internet APRS backbone, discarding duplicates if any. Mobile stations automatically derive their position information from a GPS receiver connected to the APRS equipment. In certain places, systems are in place whereby APRS can supplement Emergency Management systems in the event of failure of conventional communications. 145.825 MHz is the APRS channel from International Space Station.