APRS OTA

APRS OTA (aprsota.org) is an on-the-air activity run entirely over APRS, and APRS Connect gives it a purpose-built screen instead of a thread of raw bot commands. This guide covers what the activity is, hosting, chasing, and the one hard requirement: hosting needs a radio.

What APRS OTA is

APRS OTA is an activity on top of APRS. You announce an op — a session, roughly an hour — and operators anywhere try to reach you before the clock runs out. Each contact you confirm scores, and adds time. There are no summits, parks, or reference numbers: an op is hosted from wherever you are, and the exchange runs through the aprsota.org bot (callsign OTA) as ordinary APRS messages.

In the app, APRS OTA lives on the Services tab. Opening it asks what you want to do: Host an op or Chase an op.

Hosting an op

One tap announces you on the air: the app sends HOST — with an optional free-text comment chasers see in your spot — and the bot asks for a position report. The op starts when the bot confirms you are on the air, and the screen tracks each step in plain words rather than leaving you to read the thread.

While the op runs:

• Callers arrive as cards showing their message and where they are calling from.
• Confirming a contact is one tap plus an optional note — the field under each caller is labelled "Say something back", and the note is included in the QSL the chaser receives. An empty note sends a bare QSL, which confirms just the same.
• The screen shows your QSL count and the time remaining, with a STAY button to extend: +30 minutes per press, up to the activity's two-hour maximum.
• When you are done, END SESSION confirms, then sends DONE, and the bot replies with your final score. If the clock runs out first, the bot closes the op itself — the screen says so, and no DONE is needed.

Every op you host or chase is kept under Your ops, a logbook read back out of the OTA thread, with contacts, blasts, and the bot's own scores op by op.

Chasing

Chasing works from the other side of the same screen. The bot does not broadcast who is hosting — chasers ask it — so one tap sends CQ and the current list of hosts comes back as a message. From the list:

• Hosts you have already worked this op are check-marked.
• Calling a host sends your chase message through the bot, which logs the contact for both of you. The default chase message is yours to edit — both the saved default and the message box before each individual call goes out.
• The host's page tracks the exchange step by step: called, position report, registered by OTA, and finally the host's QSL back to you.

The exact packet, on the button

The exact packet each action will transmit is shown on the button before you press it. This is the same rule the rest of the service directory follows — guided screens, with the raw APRS command always available to inspect.

Defaults in Settings

Settings has an APRS OTA section holding the three texts the screen falls back on:

Hosting needs a radio, not APRS-IS

APRS OTA's rules require RF, and the bot enforces it: HOST is only accepted from a station transmitting over the air, so the app sends it over RF only — never APRS-IS. Your HOST and the position report that follows have to be picked up off the air by a digipeater or an igate in range of your radio; if nothing out there can hear your signal, the bot never sees the request and the op will not start. An APRS-IS connection is not enough for hosting — the app says exactly that on the screen, and offers chasing instead.

Chasing is different: it works from RF or APRS-IS, so an internet-only station can still work hosts. To host, connect a radio first — see Connect a radio for Bluetooth, USB, network, and audio-cable options, and Your first beacon to make sure your position can go out when the bot asks for it.

Next steps

• Connect a radio — hosting needs one on the air.
• APRS services — the rest of the directory the OTA screen belongs to.
• Messaging — the delivery states the OTA exchange is tracked with.

Last updated 31 August 2026