About APRS Thursday

#APRSThursday is a weekly text net on APRS. Every Thursday, from 00:00 to 23:59 UTC, operators around the world check in by sending one APRS message to ANSRVR, the group-messaging server, with the text CQ HOTG followed by whatever they want to say. HOTG is the group's name, Hams On The Go. The server relays every post to everyone subscribed to the group, and answers the sender with how many stations it reached. A check-in keeps the station subscribed for 12 hours; K HOTG extends it without posting again. The net's own page is at aprsph.net.

What this site shows

This site listens to the APRS-IS network for everything said to ANSRVR about HOTG, and for the server's answers. A station that posts CQ HOTG is a check-in and goes on the map and the list. Keep-alives, joins and leaves are logged too, and so are the server's replies, whose roll count is the "subscribed" figure on the front page. The net's logger, APRSPH, answers a check-in with a receipt; those are logged as well.

A check-in carries no position. A station is placed on the map by its own position beacons, heard on the same network, so a station that never beacons is listed but not drawn. The picker under the map steps back through every net the site has logged; the Nets page lists them one by one, and Trends draws them over time.

What counts

A message is a check-in when it is addressed to ANSRVR, begins with CQ HOTG, in any case, and arrives while the net is on. The same message arriving again within two hours with the same id is a retry, not a second check-in. A check-in sent within 12 hours before the net opens or 12 hours after it closes is an early or late check-in: kept, shown and tagged, and counted only where a page's "Include early and late check-ins" box is ticked. Further from the net than that, a message is not the net's and is not kept. Messages about other groups on the same server are not this net's and are not kept.

Check in from your phone

APRS Connect, the app behind this site, checks in to #APRSThursday with one tap: it sends the CQ HOTG message for you, shows the net as a room with everyone's posts as they arrive, keeps you subscribed through the day and reminds you when the net is on. How it works, and where to get it, is at aprsconnect.com/aprsthursday.

Sources

Packets come from the APRS-IS network. The group-messaging server, ANSRVR, is run by KJ4ERJ. How it works is described at aprs.org. The map is © OpenStreetMap contributors, drawn with Protomaps. Device names come from the APRS device identification database, maintained by Hessu OH7LZB, CC BY-SA 2.0.

Who

This site is built and run by APRS Connect, an APRS app for Android and iPhone that checks in to #APRSThursday with one tap. It is not run by the net's organisers and does not speak for them. Its sibling, SpaceAPRS, does the same for packets heard through the International Space Station.