APRS (Automatic Packet Reporting System) is a built-in feature of some radios, can be built for all radios, and is just one of those additional features that Ham Radio provides. Many people think that APRS stands for Automatic Position Reporting System because by far the most common use of the system is to provide positions of your APRS station. APRS also provides other capabilities that includes messaging and even Text messaging to the cellular network among other things.
Several years ago, a very smart gentle Ham (I didn’t look up his name or call) built a SMS Gateway to allow APRS messages to be converted to SMS Text messages and sent over the cellular network that also included the ability for the cell user to respond. This WAS provided by smsgte.org until a few bad apples ruined it for everyone. SPAM text messages started using the service as well and it created a lot of problems. Currently this service is no longer available. Unfortunately, a lot of YouTubers have posted videos on how this service works and if you search for “APRS to text messaging” all you get are these videos that are no longer valid (this is one of the problems with YouTube). It will take you a while to find a video that actually has good information.
Even without smsgte.org you can still send SMS text messages with APRS but it’s only ONE-WAY. This is because APRS also has a service to send email messages. So just like any email client, your APRS enable radio can send an email to any SMS text cellphone as well. The problem is you will need to know the cellular service provider of the person’s cellphone you want to send the SMS message to. Example for a Verizon user: vtext@(cellphone number). But again, it’s just one-way.
NOT ANYMORE!!!!
Thanks to Michael A Phelps NA7Q for developing a new SMS gateway for APRS that also fixes the SPAM problem in addition to protecting privacy of the cellular user. I’ll provide some basic information in this post but here is a link to KM4ACK’s YouTube post about this service where he explains it much better than I could ever attempt.
What makes this work without SPAM is that every phone number that will be used with this service needs to “opt-in” and the service also provides a way to opt-out as well. Additionally, there is a way to create “Aliases” for these numbers to make it simpler to type in on your radio as well as hide the phone number that will get transmitted in the APRS packets.
Here is the link to the new service.
Here is a link to the User Guide that is also available on their website.
There are two bits of information that is in the User Guide, but it might be missed if you’re not used to sending messages with APRS.
– First – In the “TO:” line on your radio you would input “SMS” (without quotes).
– Second – When you “Opt-in” a phone number, that person will get a text message telling them they have been Opted into this service so you might want to give them a heads-up ahead of time (I know this from experience that it might freak some people out).
– Third – The phone number that this service use is 866-352-4096 and is what shows up on the texts the phone will receive from you. You might want to put that in the contacts of the phone to say something like “Ham Radio Text” or “your callsign” for example. When they respond to your message it should route the text back to your radio but if they want to initiate a text to your radio, they will need to us this number and your callsign.
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