Beaconing
This is the reference for everything beaconing in APRS Connect. If you have never sent a beacon, start with the Your first beacon tutorial and come back here when you want to tune it.
More than one beacon
Beacons live on the Radio screen on the tab bar, in the Beacons section. The station beacon, which transmits as your callsign and SSID, is always there and cannot be deleted, only switched off. Beyond it you can add any number of independent beacons, each with its own symbol, comment, path, rate, and routing:
- Extra position beacons, including ones that transmit as a different callsign, such as a club call or a second SSID.
- Object beacons, which announce a thing rather than a station: an aid station, a net control point, an event. Long-press the map to place one at an exact point.
If two enabled beacons would transmit as the same station or object, the editor warns you that only one of them will go on the air.
Smart beaconing or a fixed interval
Two chips choose the timing: SMART or FIXED INTERVAL.
Smart beaconing is the default. The interval scales with speed, by default from 90 seconds at highway speed to 30 minutes parked. Corner pegging sends an extra beacon on real heading changes while ignoring compass jitter when you are stationary. Every parameter is editable:
| Field | What it does |
|---|---|
| Fast rate (moving), seconds | The interval at or above high speed |
| Slow rate (parked), seconds | The interval when parked |
| High speed (fast rate applies), mph or km/h | Above this, the fast rate applies |
| Low speed (counts as parked), mph or km/h | Below this, you count as parked |
| Minimum turn angle, degrees | How sharp a turn triggers a corner-peg beacon |
| Turn slope | Scales the turn threshold with speed |
| Minimum seconds between turn beacons | Keeps a winding road from flooding the channel |
The two speeds follow the units setting.
A fixed interval suits a station that does not move: 1, 5, 10, or 30 minutes, or any custom value in seconds.
GPS or a fixed location
In the Position section, GPS follows the phone; FIXED LOCATION reports one point that never changes. For a fixed location, type coordinates, tap USE CURRENT LOCATION to take the phone's fix once, or long-press the map. Include speed and direction adds course/speed to the packet while moving. It only applies to GPS beacons, since a fixed location has neither.
Phones without Google Play services
On a phone that has no Google Play services, such as GrapheneOS without sandboxed Google Play, the app takes its position from Android's own location services instead. GPS beacons, follow-me on the map and the services that look up things near you all work the same way. More → About says which of the two the phone is using.
Google Location Accuracy
On Android, the app does not need Google Location Accuracy. With it turned off, the phone has no wifi or mobile-network positions, so the app takes its position from the GPS alone and does not ask you to turn the setting back on. A first fix can take longer that way, especially indoors.
If the phone's Location switch is off altogether, the app shows Google's prompt to turn it on. Accepting that prompt may turn Google Location Accuracy on as well. To keep GPS only, tap No thanks and switch Location on in the phone's own settings instead.
Position ambiguity
The Location privacy section sets position ambiguity per beacon: five levels, from EXACT (about 60 ft, the finest an APRS position can carry) down to a cell roughly 70 miles across. The digits are genuinely removed before the packet is built, so the packet names a cell rather than a point. This is the standard APRS ambiguity mechanism, which every other client understands. Reduced precision is flagged in the beacon's summary so it cannot stay on by accident.
Stale GPS positions
When the GPS fix goes stale, what happens depends on how you were last seen. A station last seen stopped keeps beaconing its position, because a parked car is still where it parked. A station last seen moving goes silent rather than re-sending a place it has left.
Symbol
Tap the symbol to open the picker: the full APRS symbol set, around 190 symbols, grouped by category (Vehicles, People, Weather, Places, and so on) and searchable by name, so typing "4x4" finds the jeep. The symbol is how your station appears on every APRS map.
The Overlay field under the symbol puts a letter or digit on top of it. Type one character,
A to Z or 0 to 9, or leave it empty for none. Some overlays have a meaning other operators know,
such as 1 on a digipeater for a fill-in digi or E on a car for an electric one.
Overlays belong to the alternate symbol table (codes starting with \ in the picker). Car, Semi
truck, Van and Digipeater each have an overlay version there, so typing an overlay on one of
them switches to that picture, and clearing it switches back. Picking an overlay version from
the picker and leaving the field empty sends that picture with no overlay. Any other symbol
from the main table cannot carry one, and the field is greyed out.
Voice frequency and PHG
The On the air section can advertise a voice frequency, with tone and offset. It goes first
in the comment in the standard spec format, so radios like a Kenwood TH-D75 can tune straight
to it from the packet. A live preview shows exactly what goes on air. A PHG field (four
digits, e.g. 5132) decodes itself into watts, height, and antenna as you type.
Digipeater path
The Path field in each beacon's editor sets the digipeater path the packet asks for.
WIDE1-1, WIDE2-1 is the usual path for a mobile station on VHF; a fixed station should
usually use WIDE2-1 alone. Empty means no digipeating at all, so the packet is heard direct
only. Empty is the right setting on HF, where WIDE paths are not used.
The station beacon's path is also the path for everything else your station transmits: messages, acks, and replies to services. Clear it there and nothing your station sends asks for a digipeater. Extra beacons and objects each use their own path.
The path ARISS asks the packet digipeater on the International Space Station to repeat the
packet. The ISS screen creates a beacon profile with that path and the right rate; see
APRS through the ISS.
Mic-E or standard format
The Packet format section chooses per beacon between STANDARD and MIC-E, with the trade-offs stated on the switch itself. Standard is readable on the wire: the position is plain text in the raw packet log, which is the first place to look when a beacon is not being heard. Mic-E is about half the bytes, which matters on a busy 1200-baud channel. It is also the only format that carries a one-word status code (Off Duty, En Route, In Service, and so on) that other radios display beside your callsign. The trade: the raw log shows machine bytes instead of readable coordinates, and PHG does not fit.
Every beacon reports its own status
Each beacon's row on the Radio screen says how many have been sent and how long ago, or the exact problem keeping it off the air, like waiting for a GPS fix or a denied location permission. Beaconing continues in the background once background running is on, and a fresh install transmits nothing until you turn beaconing on, either with the Beaconing box during first run, or later from the Radio screen. While it is off, the home screen shows a notice saying so. Closing the notice hides it until the next time you switch beaconing off, so coming off the air always says so once.
Answering ?APRSP position queries
Other stations can ask where you are with an on-air ?APRSP query. Answering is opt-in and
off by default. The switch is Answer position queries, under Settings → Privacy →
Station queries. Turned on, an asking station gets one ordinary beacon in reply, position blur
included. See Answering station queries for the
rate limit, the other queries, and the record of who asked.
Related guides
- Your first beacon: the step-by-step tutorial.
- Map: how your beacon, and everyone else's, is drawn.
- APRS through the ISS: a beacon the space station repeats.
- Connect a radio: put your beacons on RF.
Last updated 1 October 2026