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Send APRS messages

Everything you do with APRS OTA starts as an APRS message addressed to OTA. If you don’t know how to send an APRS message, this page may be able to help.

Two things are true no matter what you are operating.

OTA is the addressee, not part of the message. An APRS message carries a destination callsign of its own, the way an email carries a To address. OTA goes in that field, which your radio may label Call Sign, SSID, To, or Addressee. Don’t type @OTA into the message text. The bot has no SSID, so it is OTA, not OTA-1.

The command is the first word of the text. PING is the one to start with, because the OTA bot answers every one of them and tells you which path your message arrived on. See Test connectivity for what comes back.

K7ABC-6OTAPING my first aprs message

That chip is the whole job, split the way your radio will ask for it: OTA in the addressee field, PING my first aprs message as the text.

Radios

If yours isn’t here, please reach out on the project Discord with the steps that worked for you and it will get added. The APRS menu on most radios is buried deeply enough that writing the path down once saves the next person an evening.

AnyTone AT-D878UVII Plus

Menu → APRS → APRS SMS.

  1. Type PING as the message.
  2. When it asks for Call Sign/SSID, enter OTA as the APRS destination.
  3. Send.

OTA is the APRS addressee here, which is why it goes in the Call Sign/SSID prompt rather than in the message you typed.

Kenwood TH-D75

MSG (ie the same key with the number 4 on it) → MENU → New

  1. Press ENT while the To: field is highlighted
  2. Type OTA in the To: field
  3. Press ENT
  4. Press ⏷ to move to the Message Text: field
  5. Press ENT
  6. Type PING in the Message Text: field
  7. Press ENT
  8. Press A/B to send the message