I downloaded the iphone Ham Tracker APRS app yesterday. Initial impressions are good and for less than £2 it’s a cheap way to do position reporting with existing hardware (my phone). Anyone tried it on the hills yet?
The author, Mark, gives nice quick support too - when I needed a password to try my new toy out.
73
Richard
G3CWI
In reply to G3CWI:
I don’t have an iPhone or Android type phone that will run those type of apps but some of my club members do and they apparently work very well.
Steve GW7AAV
In reply to G3CWI:
Yes, Snowdon horseshoe (Watkin Path) and then Glyders around Christmas time, worked well.
I reduced the TX intervals to match a walking pace.
Simple to use but effective.
73
Roger MW0IDX (IPhone 4)
In reply to G3CWI:
Anyone tried it on the hills yet?
I was using it on our recent holiday in mid Wales. I didn’t check my own track every day but when I did it seemed to have tracked me pretty effectively. Whether anybody else found it of any use or even looked at the position reports I do not know. Nobody mentioned it on air.
If you look at the archived tracks for M1MAJ between 2011-03-11 and 2011-03-18 you’ll get an idea what it did. Some days are better than others but mostly it seemed OK.
I was a beta tester for the app and I know that Mark put some effort into enabling it to work with low speed short distance movement (most of my day to day movements are on foot or by bicycle). The remaining restrictions are a mixture of Apple’s limitations on what a background app can do, coupled with a desire to minimise battery drain.
Martyn M1MAJ
In reply to M1MAJ:
If you when you alert you mention APRS there are at least a few of us who enjoy watching the progress of activators to the summit, although it is not always convenient to do so. Now when I get another monitor or two on this PC…
Steve GW7AAV
In reply to M1MAJ:
Martyn, Is Ham Tracker available for Android phones? I had a look at your tracks and they seemed quite good.
73, Frank
In reply to G3RMD:
Frank, if it isn’t there are other apps that do the same thing. Google ‘Android APRS’ and you should find them. I believe those sort of apps work better on Android than iPhone because of the way the software deals with what are background applications.
APRSdroid, U2APRS, APRS Viewer and more
In reply to G3RMD:
I’m using APRSdroid with my HTC smartphone.
73, Harald DL2HSC
In reply to DL2HSC:
Can anyone recommend something similar for S60 phones?
Rick.
In reply to M0RCP:
I wrote something to entertain myself for my E71 but having proved some conceptual points for my own amusement didn’t finish it. All the UI stuff is tedious and boring and not as much fun as getting the guts working. If you have a time machine I can borrow so I have 48hr days I’ll finish it off!
If you want something that can ask the embedded GPS where you and push that out to APRS-IS once every 5 minutes then I’ll see if I can resurrect something for you.
Andy
MM0FMF
In reply to G3RMD:
Martyn, Is Ham Tracker available for Android phones? I had a look at
your tracks and they seemed quite good.
Last October, Mark said (in the context of a local plug for the app):
| And yes, I know you’re all using Android rather than iOS. I might
| support Android one day too, but not just yet.
In reply to MM0FMF:
That sounds like an offer too good to be missed. Getting up to speed
on mobile phone programming is something I keep meaning to do but somehow
I never seem to find the time. If you are willing to give it a go might
I suggest reading the required parameters, call sign, SMS gateway number,
interval between transmissions etc. from a text file located somewhere on the
phone. This might cut down on the amount of tedious and boring stuff.
Rick.
In reply to GW7AAV:
Hi Steve,
I loaded APRSdroid onto my HTC wildfire 'phone and tested it locally. Seems to work very well, so thank you for the information. Local track is on G3RMD-7.
I had set my update interval to 1 minute, so road track accuracy is not great, but not bad.
I have had this 'phone for about a month and still astounded by how much capability is incorporated within it. I have loaded my 1/25 Memory Maps for Wales and the Lakes onto it’s SD card and the internal GPS does a great job of tracking your position on the maps, with the obvious advantage of not needing a 'phone signal.
As an aside, it also does a great job of guiding me around unknown golf courses (yawn–yawn) giving distances to pins, bunkers etc.
I get Martyn’s SOTA spots via Twitter (thanks Martyn) so have no excuse, for not knowing who is activating what, and getting lost on a hill.
73,
Frank
In reply to:
I find it quite interesting the differences in countries between mobile phone vs APRS coverage.
The UK enjoys great (/good) mobile coverage in the hills , but not so good APRS (RF wise) coverage. Where in the US (at least in the Adirondack Park of NY) there is virtually no mobile phone coverage (due to it’s forever wild status). But, I usually have no issues getting an APRS beacon out on 2M. Trying to get a data connection for posting APRS positions from the phone would be pure luck.
Last year, I wrote an Android app that formats and sends a SMS Spot to Andy’s SMS gateway… But I hardly ever get a chance to use it as my phone usually does not have any signal when I’m in the hills.
Slightly off topic, I know … but I found it interesting 
Andrew
K1YMI - GM1YMI
In reply to G3RMD:
Hi Frank, Glad to be of assistance. If only I could justify a new mobile phone so I could play with all these things myself. However my £5 worth of calls twice a year means contracts are stupid and buying one of these smart phones is expensive on PAYG.
As an aside, it also does a great job of guiding me around unknown golf courses (yawn–yawn) giving >distances to pins, bunkers etc.
Is that quite legal? One of these days I may take up the game again, but two years of hardly getting out because it was raining when I wasn’t working made me drop my club membership. Now I have an extremely expensive set of custom built clubs sitting in the garage gathering dust.
Martyn’s Spots via Twitter have been very useful with the added advantage that people think I am very popular when I get twenty or so text messages in 5 minutes. Bing Bong. Oh another one!
73 Steve
In reply to M1MAJ:
Last October, Mark said (in the context of a local plug for the app):
| And yes, I know you’re all using Android rather than iOS. I might
| support Android one day too, but not just yet.
I do still intend to support Android one day. I’ve been concentrating on various iOS projects so far but now that the KramStuff brand seems to be fairly well established in the iOS Ham world I have a little more time to start looking at Android. I got as far as updating my Android development environment last weekend and installed a quick “Hello World” app on my HTC Desire so things will now start to (slowly) move towards Android versions of my apps.
First up is likely to be a not-very-configurable-and-with-a-not-pretty-UI version of Ham Tracker.
Thanks all for your continued interest in and kind words about my apps.
Cheers,
Mark / G7LEU
In reply to G3CWI:
I downloaded the iphone Ham Tracker APRS app yesterday. Initial
impressions are good
However, initial impressions can be misleading! After lengthy experimentation and e-mails to Mark it turns out that the software cannot work properly on the iPhone 3G. It does work on the 3GS and 4 because they support multi-tasking. It’s a pity because the software looks great. Mark is not to blame though as Apple’s developer documentation is at best misleading.
Guess that I will have to upgrade.
73
Richard
G3CWI
In reply to G3CWI:
Guess that I will have to upgrade.
…or jailbreak the phone.
In reply to G3CWI:
Or use a phone with a fully featured OS 
Andy
M0FMF
In reply to DL2HSC:
I’m also using APRSdroid, it is available as a free download.
The only problem experienced is the lack of mobile phone coverage in a large percentage of our mountainous SOTA peak areas.
I also use ENDOMONDO while hiking/mountain biking/kayaking. It is a tracker plus a lot off additional perks. Give it a try !
http://www.endomondo.com/login
73
Allen/ZR1AAH
Born tough to survive a tough country
Cape Town/ Southern Tip of Africa