Status Reports¶
A Status Report announces the station’s current mission or any other single line status to everyone. The report is contained in the AX.25 Information field, and starts with the > APRS Data Type Identifier.
The report may optionally contain a timestamp.
Note: The timestamp can only be in DHM zulu format.
The status text occupies the rest of the Information field, and may be up to 62 characters long (if there is no timestamp in the report) or 55 characters (if there is a timestamp). The text may contain any printable ASCII or UTF-8 characters.
| Status Report Format | ||
|---|---|---|
| > | Time DHM z | Status Text (max 62 chars if no timestamp, or 55 chars if there is a timestamp) |
| 1 | 7 | 0-62 or 0-55 |
| Examples >Net Control Center without timestamp. >092345zNet Control Center with timestamp. |
Bytes:
Although the status will usually be plain language text, there are two cases where the report can contain special information which can be decoded:
- Beam Heading and Power
- Maidenhead grid locator
Status Report with Beam Heading and Effective Radiated Power¶
It is useful to include beam heading and ERP in packets in meteor scatter work. To keep packets as short as possible, these parameters are encoded into two characters, as follows:
H = beam heading / 10
(H=0–9 for 0–90 degrees, and A–Z for 100–350 degrees).
P = ERP code.
| ERP | P |
|---|---|
| 10w | 1 |
| 40 | 2 |
| 90 | 3 |
| 160 | 4 |
| 250 | 5 |
| 360 | 6 |
| 490 | 7 |
| 640 | 8 |
| 810 | 9 |
| ERP | P |
|---|---|
| 1000w | : |
| 1210 | ; |
| 1440 | < |
| 1690 | = |
| 1960 | > |
| 2250 | ? |
| 2560 | @ |
| 2890 | A |
| 3240 | B |
| ERP | P |
|---|---|
| 3610w | C |
| 4000 | D |
| 4410 | E |
| 4840 | F |
| 5290 | G |
| 5760 | H |
| 6250 | I |
| 6760 | J |
| 7290 | K |
The HP value appears as the last two characters of the status text, preceded by the ^ character — for example, ^B7 means a beam heading of 110 degrees and an ERP of 490 watts.
The HP value may be combined with the Maidenhead grid locator (as described below), or with any other plain language status text.
Status Report with Maidenhead Grid Locator¶
The Maidenhead grid locator may be 4 or 6 characters long, and must immediately follow the > Data Type Identifier.
All letters must be transmitted in upper case. Letters may be received in upper case or lower case.
The Symbol Table Identifier and Symbol Code follow the locator.
If the report also contains status text, the first character of the text must be a space.
A Status Report with Maidenhead locator can not have a timestamp.
Bytes:
| Status Report Format — with Maidenhead Grid Locator | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| > | Maidenhead Locator | Sym Table ID | Symbol Code | Status Text (starting with a space) ˽ (max 54 chars) | ||
| GG | nn | gg | ||||
| 1 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 1-54 |
| Examples >IO91SX/G >IO91/G >IO91SX/-˽My house (Note the space ˽at the start of the status text). >IO91SX/-˽^B7 Meteor Scatter beam heading = 110 degrees, ERP = 490 watts. |
Transmitting Status Reports¶
Each station should only transmit a Status Report once every net cycle time (i.e. once every 10, 20 or 30 minutes), or in response to a query.