Making APRS work on the AnyTone AT-D878UV

APRS is super cool. For this post, I've prepared a step-by-step guide to show you how to make APRS and DPRS work for the 878.

The 878 TX-ing APRS in the European frequency

APRS is super cool and extremely fun. In full honesty, I think that Anytone missed an opportunity to create a DMR radio with full APRS capabilities with the 878. However, you can still send APRS and DPRS packages using this radio, both over analog APRS and over DMR. It-s simpler than it looks, it you follow the instructions carefully.

The first thing you need to do is to activate the APRS functions in the programming software. In case you are not familiar with the Anytone programming software, I strongly encourage you to visit my previous post, that will show you how to create a basic codeplug.

Once in the programming software, go to the Tools menu and click on Options, like this:

Then, a new window will pop. Make sure you select both APRS and GPS, as in the next image:

Once selected, you'll see a new "APRS" menu on the tree to the left on your screen:

Clicking on the APRS item will pop up another screen. This is where you'll set up all of your APRS/DPRS configuration.

In this window, you'll need to set the following values:

1. Manual TX intervals: Limits how often you can send an APRS message by pressing the PTT button
2. Auto APRS TX intervals: How often you want your radio to send an APRS message
3. Support for roaming: Unless you are relying on some black magick configuration with your Zones, leave this Off.
4. Fixed location beacon: Set to Off. Your Anytone has a built-in GPS, and will use the satellite signal to report your position.
5. Latitude/Longitude: Any value will do. These values will only be used when a fixed beacon has been set up in the previous step.
6. Analog section: This is the meat and potatoes of your analog APRS configuration:
1. APRS TX Tone: Set to Off. The Anytone has a tendency to make you listen to the audio that it's transmitting anytime it sends an APRS message.
2. Destination Call Sign: I have mine set to APDR10.
3. Destination SSID: I have mine set to 0
4. Your callsign: Can I be any more obvious?
5. Your SSID: Set to 7, unless you have a good reason to pick another one.
6. APRS Symbol table: I have mine set to "/". WA8LMF has created a pretty much self-explanatory table here.
7. APRS Map Icon: I use "&"
8. APRS Signal Path: Usually "WIDE1-1". Edit: Don't use commas in the path (ie: no "WIDE1-1,WIDE2-2"). Direwolf will throw an error when decoding the message, and it will be discarded.
9. Enter your sending message: Whatever you want to transmit. Unfortunately, you cannot change this message very easily, so I'll go for you name, radio and location or something similar.
10. Transmission Frequency: 144.800 for Europe, 144.390 for North America. Other regions, please see the Wikipedia entry.
11. Transmit Delay: Set to 600ms
12. Send Sub-tone: Off
13. CTCSS: Select whatever. It doesn't matter, as you disabled the previous option.
14. DCS: Same as above
15. Prewave time: Set to 600ms
16. Transmit Power: Depending on how far away your closest digipeater is. I have mine set to "Mid"
7. Now, on to the Digital DMR part
1. The 878 only allows you to TX DMR ARPS messages on 8 preconfigured channels. Pick the 8 that you want to use. I don't have more information about why they decided to go this route.
2. For each one of the above channels, select:
1. Report Slot: Channel slot (DPRS info will be send in the same timeslot as your audio transmission)
2. APRS TG: For BrandMeister UK is 234999. USA is 310999
3. Call Type: Private Call

Now, you'll need to enable DPRS to your selected channels. Edit each channel you picked up in step 7.1 above, and follow this configuration:

Update these values:

• Enable Digi APRS RX at the top right.
• APRS report type: Digital
• Digital APRS PTT mode: On
• Digital APRS Report Channel: This has to match the same channel number that you used in step 7.2 above. In my example, I selected Channel 1 in the APRS menu to be my channel BM 213 UK. Now, I need to use Digital APRS Reporting Channel = 1 in the configuration of this channel.

Finally, create a new analog channel named "Analog APRS" on your codeplug, and set it to TX and RX in the same frequency that you used in step 6.10 above.

And done! Each time you press the PTT button on your Analog APRS channel, the radio will send the preconfigured message, including your location. When using DMR, the radio will send your APRS message to TG 234999 after you released the PTT button.

Hope this helps. As usual, if you have any questions, please check out the "About me" page for more information on how to reach out to me.

73 - M0PQA