Your first beacon

A beacon is the periodic position report that puts your station on everyone else's map. A fresh install of APRS Connect transmits nothing at all until you turn beaconing on. The first chance to do that is the Beaconing box on the station setup screen during first run; if you left it off there, the home screen shows a "Beaconing is off" notice that opens the Radio screen, and this guide covers turning it on from there. Transmitting requires an amateur radio licence; if you are not licensed yet, stay in receive-only mode for now.

Before you start

You need your callsign set and at least one connected channel to carry the beacon. That can be an APRS-IS connection over the internet, a radio, or both. The Radio screen tells you plainly when either is missing.

Open the station beacon

Open the Radio screen on the tab bar and find the Beacons section. The station beacon is already there: it is the beacon that transmits as you, under your callsign and SSID. It cannot be deleted, because it is how the app answers "who is this station". It can only be switched off. Tap it to open its settings. (You can add more beacons later, such as extra positions, objects or a club call, but the station beacon is the one to start with.)

Position: GPS or a fixed location

In the Position section, choose between two chips:

GPS: the beacon follows the phone. This is the right choice for a station that moves.
FIXED LOCATION: the beacon reports one point that never changes, such as a home station, a digipeater site or a club shack. Enter latitude and longitude, tap USE CURRENT LOCATION to take the phone's fix once, or long-press the map to place the beacon at an exact point.

There is also a Location privacy section. It sets position ambiguity per beacon, which genuinely removes digits from the transmitted position. Beaconing covers it in depth.

Pick a symbol

The symbol is how your station appears on every APRS map, from other operators' radios to aprs.fi. Tap the symbol to open the picker: the full APRS symbol set, around 190 symbols, searchable by name. Type "4x4" and get the jeep; the search box suggests "car, jeep, weather, digipeater…". Symbols are grouped by category (Vehicles, People, Weather, Places, and so on), so browsing works too.

How often it beacons

Two chips choose the timing:

SMART: the default, and the right answer for anything that moves. The interval scales with speed (by default, 90 seconds at highway speed stretching to 30 minutes parked), and corner pegging sends an extra beacon on real heading changes while ignoring compass jitter when you are stationary. Every parameter is editable.
FIXED INTERVAL: one steady rate, which suits a fixed location.

The defaults are sensible; leave them alone for a first beacon. Beaconing explains every parameter when you want to tune them.

Where it goes

The Send via section decides the routing. EVERYWHERE sends the beacon out on every connected channel, radio and internet alike, including channels you add later. Or name specific channels instead: pin the beacon to a radio channel and it is RF-only; pin it to APRS-IS and it is internet-only. A beacon pinned to named channels does not fall back, so if none of them is connected, it does not go out.

Turn it on

Two switches matter, and both are deliberate:

The beacon's own Enabled switch, which reads "transmits whenever beaconing is on".
The Beaconing switch on the Radio screen, which reads "Off · starts every enabled beacon below" until you flip it. This is the master switch for everything.

Flip both and your first position report goes out.

Check it worked

The app tells you directly. The beacon's row on the Radio screen reports its own status: how many have been sent and how long ago ("3 sent · last beacon 2 min"), or the exact problem keeping it off the air, such as "On · waiting for a GPS fix, nothing transmitted yet", "On · location permission denied, nothing is transmitted" or "On · location is switched off, nothing transmitted". The packet log shows the actual transmitted frame, decoded field by field.

For outside confirmation, search your callsign on aprs.fi. If the beacon went out over APRS-IS you will appear within seconds; over RF, once a digipeater or igate in range has heard you.

The Android location wrinkle

Three Android settings routinely trip up first beacons:

Precise location. When Android asks for location permission, grant Precise, not approximate. Approximate location gives the app coarse wifi-grade fixes with no speed information, which means beacons from the wrong place and smart beaconing that cannot tell moving from parked.
Location switched off for the whole phone. The app's own permission and the phone's Location switch are two different things, and granting the first does nothing while the second is off: the beacon says "On · location is switched off, nothing transmitted", and the Radio screen offers a button straight to the settings page that has the switch. Turn Beaconing off and on again once it is on.
Running in the background. The Radio screen's Run in the background switch is on by default ("On · keeps receiving and beaconing"), so beaconing continues with the screen off, behind a visible notification. If it has been switched off it reads "Off · runs only while the app is open". Some phones also freeze apps on their own, on top of Android, so if beacons stop when the phone sleeps, see Background & battery.

On an iPhone

Two iPhone settings matter for a first beacon:

Precise location. When iOS asks for location access, leave Precise on. Without it the phone reports an approximate position, and the beacon goes out from the wrong place.
Location access set to Always. With Run in the background on, beaconing carries on while the app is in the background, and iOS shows its location indicator while it does. That needs location access set to Always. iOS asks with its own dialog, and Settings → APRS Connect → Location can change it later. Set to While Using the App, the beacon stops when the phone is locked, and the Radio screen says so under Beaconing, with a button that opens Settings. Receiving pauses while the app is in the background; see Background & battery.

Next steps

Beaconing: smart beaconing parameters, paths, position ambiguity, Mic-E, and object beacons.
Map: see yourself and everyone else.
Messaging: send a message to another station.

Last updated 29 September 2026