New status packet views

I have added proper support for APRS status packets, and started storing them separately from beacons. You can now browse APRS status packets based on the callsign, and browse the status history of each station sending status messages.

Naturally this called for new strings to be translated. Please visit the Translation tool page to update your translations for the status/ category. I also changed the strings in the generic browselist category so that complete sentences are used - this should help translation work for many languages, allowing you to reach the proper ordering of words. Please note that you can copy and edit your old translation to match the new English string, just click on Toggle history and then copy to move the old translation to the empty editing field.

Again, a big thank you to everyone involved in the translation work. I know the translations help a lot of people to understand what's going on here.

Balloon flight right now: OH6SIX, Pula-Ilmari IV

It's the last day of the summer camp of the Finnish Amateur Radio League (SRAL), and the guys there just launched a balloon with an Opentracker 2 and a cross-band FM repeater (145.4 MHz in, 433.4 MHz out). It's now at 5087 meters, going up. There's also a CW/HELL beacon at 28.322 MHz. Track OH6SIX!

Kawasaki ZZR1200 with an OpenTracker

Here's my Kawasaki ZZR1200 motorcycle, equipped with an OpenTracker 1+ and a Puxing PX-777 handheld radio. I installed the APRS tracker in May 2008. It's callsign is OH7LZB-10. Click on the photos to get a larger view.

The radio and the tracker fit nicely inside the box under the seat. It's generally a dry place, but might be slightly humid. Maybe some additional weather sealing would be in place. Maybe I'll put the whole lot in a sealed plastic bag, or fill the tracker with hot melt glue.

The APRS tracking setup gets it's power through a Powerpole connector and a 1A fuse from the tail lights wiring, which is powered whenever the lights are on (they're turned on automatically when the engine is running). There is an accessory power connector under the seat, but it goes directly to the battery, so it's always powered.

The PX-777 wants roughly 8 volts of DC, so I glued a 7808 regulator with a small heat sink to the back of the radio. I feed the same 8V to the OT1+ tracker, which has an internal 5V regulator, which also powers the GPS unit.

I built a custom antenna mounting bracket out of aluminum profile, a female BNC chassis connector, a bit of RG58 and a crimped SMA connector for the Puxing. The bracket is attached to the metal tubing of the Kappa/Giwi 3-bag mounting structure. All RF connections are sealed with heat-shrinking tube. The antenna is a Nagoya NA-771 BNC 2m/70cm whip. The antenna position is not an optimal one - but it's practical, and didn't require any modifications to the bike itself. And it doesn't affect the looks too much. I'm planning to try out a regular 1/4th wave vertical, which will require proper grounding of the bag mount.

The answers to the FAQs are: 1164cc, top speed around 270 km/h (167 mph). No, I haven't tried it. This is my third bike, the previous ones were Kawasaki ER-5 and Suzuki GSX750F.

Database statistics break

Some of you might have noticed that the aprs.fi statistics graphs were broken for a few days. I added some new statistics collection in the configuration on Friday, which worked just fine, but I also accidentally broke some old configuration (changed database password) on the way, and didn't notice it until yesterday.

The problem only affected the aprs.fi operation statistics collection, not APRS-IS data collection. The service itself worked just fine, it's performance data just wasn't collected too well.

Facelift and new buttons

Before leaving for the midsummer night's long weekend in the countryside (we had friday off from work in Finland) I did a little facelift for the main map view. After a little testing and bug fixing during sunday I'm installing this upgrade on the production servers.

I added a full screen mode (well, almost...) - click on the new "collapse" button in the top right corner to hide the menu bar. Thanks to Kauto (OH2LFM) and others for requesting this one. The new button is sometimes slightly misplaced when running MSIE6 - please upgrade to Internet Explorer 7 to get rid of that IE6 rendering bug.

I also added 'search' buttons for the callsign and address lookup input fields. They should enable Tony (VE3TK) and others to use aprs.fi on the Nintendo Wii (lacking an 'enter' key on the virtual keyboard), it'll probably help other embedded devices too. They also fix the problem of quick typists - pressing the (real) 'enter' key while the last key used in the callsign entry was still depressed failed to trigger the form submission, and you needed to press enter again. I'll add submit buttons on the rest of the forms later! Usability before coolness!

The facelift part consisted of removing the unnecessary "fieldset" box around the menu bar and adding a background image with a nice blue colour blend. Thanks to Gimp for help with the icon and background graphics!

I also added a workaround for a bug in the latest Google Maps API code, which partially broke address search. A javascript error broke the map view after about half of the address searches.

Firefox 3 was released last week, and it still seems to contain the bug which makes it break with aprs.fi every now and then. Less often, but still. Not recommended.

aprs.fi presentation webcast tomorrow at 0700 UTC

I'm giving a presentation on aprs.fi tomorrow morning at the 30th Nordic VHF/UHF/SHF-meeting in Sappee, Finland. The presentations are broadcasted live on the Internet and on the 1.2 GHz ATV repeaters in Helsinki and Tampere.

My presentation will be on tomorrow morning, 14th of June, at 0700 UTC (10 AM local time).

Sorry for the late notice!

Greek aprs.fi

Costas (SW2HUI) has contributed a complete translation of aprs.fi in Greek. ελληνική γλώσσα looks beautiful and reminds me of a few very nice holiday trips, too. Thank you, Costas!