Today, I used a QuanSheng UV-K6 handheld radio with the CEC 0.3v firmware to attempt sending an APRS signal to a repeater. The experiment was very successful; the information from the handheld radio immediately appeared on APRSDroid.
I don't have much experience with APRS itself, so I won't be discussing any specific aspects of APRS here. Instead, I'll mainly share some minor observations and findings from my experiments.
The general steps are as follows: First, enable digital mode. Then, restart the radio. Next, save the target frequency in the last two channels (these channels will automatically display names). Then, set up the information in menu 2, and find the APRS transmission option in menu 8, and simply select "transmit."
First, enable digital mode in menu 3, then restart your radio.
In frequency mode, enter the target frequency, for example, 144.640 MHz. Then, go to menu 30 and directly save the frequency to channels CH-001's first two channels. You will find that the names of these two channels are "APRS MSG" and "APRS GPS". After saving the frequency here, the system will automatically read the transmitting frequency from this location.
When entering information in Menu 2, there are a few key techniques to keep in mind. Pressing the M key (function key) moves the cursor one character to the right, while pressing the * key moves it one character to the left. The F key allows you to quickly enter spaces, the letter "A", or leave it blank. To enter numbers, you can directly use the number keys on the keyboard; other characters can be found individually using the up and down arrow keys, such as special characters like "-" , "/"<(e.g., “,”.) can also be found.
For menu item 2, the GPS latitude (Lat) and longitude (Lon) do not need to be set with too many decimal places; generally, keeping three decimal places is sufficient for positioning. As for APRS DP1 and APRS DP2, you can set them to paths like WIDE2-1 or WIDE1-1. I'm not entirely sure what the specific meanings are, so you can search online or ask an AI for clarification.
The next step is to transmit the APRS signal. Note that simply pressing the PTT key will not work; you need to enter menu 8.（T.APRS）Here, you can choose from four transmission modes: STS (Status), POS (Position), CWM (CW Information), and MSG (Message). Once you have selected a mode, simply press the "M" key to transmit.
If you find that your handheld radio displays "Disable TX", you can resolve this by following these steps: Turn off the radio, while simultaneously holding down the PTT key and side button 1, and keep them held down. Then turn on the radio. When the screen displays "Release All Key", release the buttons. At this point, you will notice that the menu options have expanded from the original 62 to 72. Next, go to menu item 63 and select the appropriate settings. If the numeric mode has been disabled at this point, repeat step 1 to re-enable the numeric mode.
Through practical testing, it was found that transmitting in POS mode allows the latitude and longitude information stored in menu 2 to be broadcast. This information is likely to appear on some APRS websites (such as aprs.tv), displaying your station and call sign information.
If you transmit in STS and MSG modes, the APRS MSG information stored in menu 2 will be sent out.
When transmitting in CWM mode, the system sequentially sends the CW MSG information stored in menu 2 (with numbers from 0 to 9). For example, if you store "CQ CQ" in CW MSG 0 and "DE BG5JMT" in CW MSG 1, with the rest empty, the final transmitted message will be "CQ CQDE BG5JMT". As can be seen, this message is missing a space, so it needs to be inserted at an appropriate location to make the information more reasonable. I think this function is very suitable for sending longer messages. The author designed it this way, presumably to maximize resource reuse within the limited storage space and achieve more functionality.
The content I want to share is all of this. Finally, a wonderful 73 to you, and best wishes for your radio communications to reach far and wide!
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