Messaging
The Messages tab holds conversations: one thread per station, kept in order, with every message showing exactly what happened to it on the air. It works the same whether your packets go out over a radio, over APRS-IS, or both at once.
One thread per station, five kinds
Conversations come in five kinds, and the thread list can filter by any mix of them — the selection persists across launches:
- Direct — conversations with another station, radio to radio.
- Services — automated bots like WHO-IS or the email gateway. See APRS services.
- Bulletins — broadcasts to everyone in range, collected into one room per group.
- SMS — text messages carried by the SMS gateway.
- Groups & Nets — rooms carried by ANSRVR, like #APRSThursday. See Groups and nets.
Thread headers show when the station was last heard and its distance and bearing from you — or "Not heard yet", never a made-up value. Inside a thread you get an unread boundary line, day dividers, and a jump-to-latest button when you have scrolled up.
Six delivery states
Every message you send carries one of six states:
| State | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Queued | Waiting for the channel |
| Sent | Handed to the radio or APRS-IS — not yet proof it was radiated |
| Digipeated | Your own packet came back through a repeater — proof it went out over the air |
| Delivered | The recipient acknowledged it |
| Rejected | The recipient explicitly refused it |
| Not delivered | Every attempt failed |
Digipeated is confirmed off the air: the app matches its own packet coming back through a digipeater, which is proof it was radiated — not a guess.
Retries, stop, and retransmit
Retries are automatic: 30 seconds at first, doubling to a 5-minute ceiling, six attempts in all. Messages still in flight when the app is killed are picked up and resumed on relaunch. Failed messages show a retry button on the bubble itself, and the thread list flags the conversation.
You can stop a message mid-retry — and the app tells you what actually happened: stopped in time, a copy already went out, a digipeater repeated it, or it was already delivered. You can also retransmit any message: a pending one reuses the same wire ID so a late acknowledgement still matches, while an answered one goes out as a new message.
Incoming messages addressed to you are acknowledged automatically. Duplicate retransmissions are acknowledged again but do not re-notify.
The 67-byte limit, and templates
APRS messages carry at most 67 bytes, and the compose box counts down against that limit as you type. Longer text is split into parts automatically, and a multi-part send reports the state of its least-delivered part — it does not claim delivery until every part made it.
Message templates save typing on a small keyboard, in four groups: Everyday, POTA / SOTA, Nets, and Emergency.
Search, mute, archive, block, delete
Search covers every message ever stored, with matches highlighted and inbox and archive results kept separate. Per thread you can:
- Mute — keeps receiving and stays in the list, but stops notifying. Muted threads still keep their unread count.
- Archive — hidden from the main list, kept in full. A new message brings it back; archived threads live under More → Archived.
- Block — their messages stop reaching your inbox and stop being acknowledged. Their packets are still received — APRS is a shared channel — so they stay in the packet log and on the map.
- Delete conversation — removes every message in it from this device. The packets themselves were transmitted in the clear and remain in everyone else's logs.
Bulletins
Bulletins are collected into one room per group, with each one attributed to the station that sent it. You can post your own: a general bulletin, or one addressed to a group — WX, a club, an event.
Asking a station where it is
From any station's page you can send the standard ?APRSP position query. The request is tracked
like any message, and the answer arrives as a fresh position on the map — not a chat
bubble.
Composing: radio and every gateway in one place
The New message screen covers every network from one place: radio, plus each message gateway — SMS, email, Winlink, WhatsApp — with per-channel validation and recipient formats. Callsign suggestions come only from stations actually heard.
For SMS, note that texts go out in the clear over APRS, and both phone numbers must be registered at aprs.wiki first. You can give an SMS conversation a local name on your phone, or save the number as an alias on the gateway itself so it works from any radio you use. The gateways are covered in more detail in APRS services.
Message notifications arrive on a dedicated Android channel, so APRS can be silenced independently of everything else — see Background and battery for receiving while the screen is off.
Last updated 31 August 2026