The 2024 VaQP APRS Tracker will be available again this year! The textual callsign tracker view as well as the usual real-time map will be accessible. The tabular, text view of VaQP station callsigns, their 3 letter county or independent city (C&IC), their time spent in the C&IC (C&IC AGE) and the age (minutes) of their most recent GPS beacon spot (SPOT AGE) will be embedded in the map view as well as accessible as a standalone page for mobile devices. The automatic detection feature will be available so there is no need to register your call with me as long as you see and follow the info about adding VQP in your Beacon/Text message below.
Stations in a new C&IC less for less than 30 minutes are displayed in bold italic. Stations are sorted newest to oldest by their last GPS beacon time. Lines are color coded green, yellow, pink and red for ages <1, <2, <3 and 3> hours according to the age of the GPS beacon message. Calls are aged out if they haven’t generated a beacon in more than 4 hours.
For the table layout and map features see:
The map functions the same as prior years. Click on a color county or city (C&IC) for its name and 3-letter designator. Click on a colored circle (green, yellow, orange, red) to zoom and expand a closely grouped set of APRS stations to reveal their individual callsigns. Use the buttons on the left of the map to focus on a certain area of Virginia (N, SE, C, SW).
For mobiles or smartphone users looking for just the VaQP tracker station data, check out the VaQP Mini Tracker URL here:
https://k1ra.us/vaqp-aprs-mini/
Stations using an Android phone, grab APRSDroid, free and tested from https://aprsdroid.org/download/ or Play Store (for pay). Any other APRS-IS compatible Android apps should work too.
iPhone users must purchase the APRS TX IOS app, which seems to be the least expensive app and supports APRS-IS. NOTE APRS.FI app does NOT work directly with the APRS-IS network so it will not work with my VaQP APRS Tracker system.
App users be sure to get your APRS pass code at https://apps.magicbug.co.uk/passcode/ by entering just your call sign and retrieving the 4-5 digit code. Enter the code into the smart phone APRS app so your location is sent through the APRS-IS network for my server to detect and plot your location.
Please email k1ra@k1ra.us with your VaQP plans for using APRS, for example what CALLSIGN-n you’ll be using so I can add you to the spotting list. OR…
You may add VQP or VAQP (case insensitive) into your periodic APRS Preferences “Beacon message” or “Comment field” broadcast text my app will automatically add and start automatically tracking your location.
Email any comments, questions or suggestions to k1ra@k1ra.us
73
andyz – K1RA
p.s. – The Mini Tracker section of this project is based on a project developed by Rich K3FRG called arGeoDetector
