APRS Connect

Getting started

APRS Connect is an APRS client for Android and iPhone. This guide takes you from installing the app to hearing live APRS traffic, and points you at the right guide for whatever you want to do next. The app is free to install and use over APRS-IS; connecting a radio and a few other features need APRS Connect Pro.

What you need

  • An Android phone or an iPhone. The app is on Google Play and the App Store. The iPhone app connects to BLE KISS TNCs, KISS over TCP, APRS-IS and the audio modem, which keys the radio by VOX; Bluetooth Classic and USB serial TNCs are Android-only. On a computer, or to try it without installing anything, the same app runs in a browser. For Windows there is also an app to install: see On Windows.
  • An amateur radio licence, if you want to transmit. Everything that goes on the air, whether a message, a beacon or a service command, is signed with your callsign, and transmitting without a licence is illegal in essentially every country. Listening is different: you can run the app receive-only over the internet with no licence at all, which also lets you watch how APRS works before you are licensed.
  • A radio is optional. APRS runs both over RF and over the internet backbone (APRS-IS). The app speaks to real radios through several kinds of TNC, or to APRS-IS over your phone's own connection, or both at once. You can start with internet-only and add a radio later.

First run

The app opens with four short slides. The first after the welcome shows how a packet gets from you to everyone else, through digipeaters, IGates and APRS-IS, with a switch between the radio path and the internet-only one. The next shows the map, messages, services and nets each doing its one thing. The last asks which radio you have: a handheld with Bluetooth, a radio and a TNC, or none yet. That answer sets nothing up; it only decides whether the permissions step asks for nearby devices, which it skips if you pick No radio yet. You connect a radio from the Radio screen whenever you are ready.

Then the app walks you through setup once, in order. Nothing transmits during any of it. A fresh install sends nothing until you explicitly turn something on.

  1. Your station. Your callsign, an SSID, and a map symbol. The SSID is the number after the dash that separates this device from your other APRS stations; the screen explains the conventional choices, and the app suggests sensible defaults. The callsign has to be the form that fits in a packet: up to six letters and digits, then an optional dash and an SSID from 0 to 15. A space, or a suffix such as /P or /M, cannot go on the air, and the screen says so under the field rather than letting it through. The same goes for the placeholder calls N0CALL, NOCALL and MYCALL: no APRS-IS server lets one log in. A name that fits but does not look like a callsign (no digit, or a digit at the end) gets a note under the field, and the app asks once before using it: that is usually a typo, but a bot or a service can be a station without a callsign's shape, so you can go ahead. How other operators see you on the map is the symbol you pick here. You can change all of it later under Radio → Station identity, which checks the callsign the same way. The same screen carries one checkbox: that you hold a current amateur licence, the callsign above is yours, you are responsible for everything transmitted under it (including the beacons and acks the app sends on its own), and you understand APRS is public. You agree once. Under it is a second box, Beaconing, off by default: tick it and the station beacon starts the moment setup finishes; leave it and the station stays receive-only. If you leave it off, the home screen shows a notice saying beaconing is off, with a tap through to the Radio screen where the switch lives. Closing the notice hides it for as long as the station stays off the air; it returns the next time you turn beaconing off, as a reminder that you are no longer on the map.
  2. Permissions. The app asks for four things and says what each is actually for: location (your own beacons and distances to other stations), notifications (incoming messages), nearby devices (Bluetooth TNCs, and not asked if you said you have no radio yet), and running in the background (receiving while the screen is off). Decline any of them and the features that need them wait until you change your mind.
  3. Usage data. Sharing anonymous usage statistics is a choice, presented plainly. It is off unless you turn it on, and reports never include callsigns, yours or anyone else's.
  4. Battery. Android asks whether the app may keep running with the screen off. See Background and battery for what that costs and why it matters.
  5. APRS Connect Pro. The offer, with a "Without Pro" row beside the plans. Nothing is bought unless you pick a plan; see Free and Pro.

Hear your first traffic

The fastest way to see the app working is an internet connection to APRS-IS. It needs no hardware, and traffic appears within seconds:

  1. Open the Radio screen on the tab bar. A fresh install already has an APRS-IS channel there, switched on and waiting for your callsign.
  2. With your callsign set, it connects on its own: the app picks a regional server and derives your passcode from your callsign, so you never type one.
  3. Watch the Stations tab and the Map fill in with what you're hearing.

The Connect to APRS-IS guide covers filters, receive-only mode, and choosing servers. If you have a radio and a TNC, start at Connect a radio instead. Bluetooth, USB, network, and audio-cable connections each have their own guide.

Where things live

Six cells along the bottom:

  • Messages: conversation threads, one per station, with per-message delivery state.
  • Map: stations, objects, and trails on a vector map that works offline once viewed.
  • Stations: everything you've heard, nearest first, with full detail per station.
  • Services: the directory of APRS service bots as guided screens.
  • Packets: every raw frame, live, decoded field by field.
  • Radio: your channels, beacons, and whether anything is connected right now.

Everything else, including Settings, archived threads, the grid square tool, and the IGate and digipeater screens, is in the drawer. Tap the small arrow above the bar, or swipe up anywhere on the bar, to open it.

Arranging the bar

The drawer shows every screen in the app, with the six that are currently on the bar in the top row. Hold any tile and drag it onto another and the two swap places. Nothing else moves. Drag something onto a tile in the top row and it takes that place on the bar, and the tile it landed on goes where the dragged one came from. The arrow above the bar is not a tile and never moves.

The app opens on whatever is in the first cell. Put the map first and the app starts on the map. (Only a tab can be the starting screen, so if the first cell holds something that opens over the top, such as Settings, the app starts on the first tab after it.) The order is saved on the phone and included in a backup.

A screen that was never a tab, such as Settings, still opens the way it always did when it is put on the bar: over the top, with a back button, rather than switching in place.

Next steps

Last updated 8 October 2026

Next On Windows