THE HISTORY OF APRS This history was written in response to some grumblings originating in California questioning the origins of APRS. This bibliography chronicles only my development of APRS, and does NOT include DOZENS of other amateur publications and articles that I have authored for the benefit of amateur radio, the growth of packet, the development of packet HF modems, and the origin of SAREX. I am a life member of AMSAT, the ARRL, and AMRAD. The Automatic Packet Reporting System (APRS) software has evolved over the last sixteen years of my involvement in amateur packet radio. For years, I was on the AMRAD board of directors, the Amateur Radio Reasearch and Development group that was instrumental in the original specification for AX.25 written by my good friend Terry Fox, WB4JFI and published by AMRAD in 1984. In 1978 I had built the first digital on the air automatic message system which became a dual port phone and packet radio BBS for the AMRAD group when ASCII first became legal in the late 70s [1]. Isolated without packet in Japan in 1982, I wrote my first data maping program, which took NAVY HF position reports off the air and displayed them on an APPLE-II computer. From the beginning, I was always making packet maps of the growing packet network [3,5,6]. In 1983, I wrote a gateway/BBS program on my VIC-20 computer to permit simultaneous operation of both HF and VHF ports for exchange of packet messages and pioneered the use of 200 Hz shift for packet on HF with cross-county links to W0RPK, W9TD, and K7PYK [2]. We used 10.149 MHz. To my knowledge, this was the first amateur HF BBS/GATEWAY; and it remained on the air 'round the clock for 5 years through 1989 under the FCC STA for automatic packet HF operations. My APRS connectionless protocol idea was first used in a program I wrote on the VIC-20 for reporting the position and status of horses in a 100 mile cross country endurence run for which the AMRAD organization was always tinkering with new and better ways to use packet for public service [4]. I spent two years improving the idea for amateur packet radio support of the National Disaster Medical System exercises sponsored by FEMA [7,8,9]. During this time frame I called it the Connectionless Emergency Traffic System (CETS). At the end of the second national exercise I realized that the number of C-64 computers was dwindling and that I should re-write the software for the new IBM PC that was entering the HAM community. I also began to integrate packet mapping into the program to add to the tactical usefulness. Throughout this time period, HAMS on the local repeater will recall my constant chatter about the need for a packet maping program. We were beginning to see street map software in the stores, but none of the off-the-shelf packages appeared to offer any hooks for the user to tie this maping software into packet radio. During 1990 I got tired of trying to inspire someone else to find a source of maps and began to digitize the East Coast myself. I decided to do all the maps by hand and designed a map data format so that any HAM could draw a map for any local packet application using only a text editor. The idea was to "roll our own", so that as a HAM community, we could be self sufficient and develop maps for any application and share them within the community. Once that maping decision was made, APRS evolved daily as I began to play with it on the air, and realized its potential. Every idea that I could think of to facilitate communication using APRS was added to the program. For four years now, APRS has consumed thousands of hours of evenings and weekends as I tweaked the program and drew maps. This time does not include the many hours spent at the Naval Academy to modify the APRS concept to operate on the Naval Academy boats for summer cruises. In that environment, I had to modify APRS to operate on a fiber-optic Local Area Network, instead of the radio environment used in HAM radio. Throughout this timeframe, I have been preaching to the amateur community the tremendous potential for using packet radio networks (like APRS) for disaster communications and public service. APRS is 100% my own work. If someone else claims to have written APRS, then I sure would have liked to have known about it 10 years ago. It would have certainly saved me 4000 programming hours and a lot of grief from the family! Finally, I am not doing this to make money on amateur radio! I ask for a registration contribution to help defray all the mailing costs and the psychological burden of having hundreds of HAMS all across the country call me at home at all times of the evening with repititious and continuous questions. I learned this lesson the hard way by releasing my C-64 BBS source code to the HAM community in 1984 for free. Now, 11 years later, I still get phone calls, letters without SASE's, and registered letters from third world countries (requiring a trip to the post office) asking questions about this obsolete software! The code has been so modified by hundreds of other people, that I can scarcely recognize it. Yet, folks expect ME to tell them why it doesn't work on their c-64 that they got for $5 at a local yard sale!. The following is a bibliography chronicling the development of APRS: [1] MULTI-USER DATA NETWORK OVER VHF RADIO, Bruninga, AMRAD Newsletter, Mar 78. [2] HF PACKETS, MODEMS and GATEWAYS, Bruninga, Third ARRL computer Networking Conference pg 6-7, 15 Apr 84. (HF packet specification for 200 HZ shift) [3] EASTNET - AN EAST COAST PACKET RADIO NETWORK, Bruninga, p 9-11, Third ARRL Computer Networking Conference. 15 Apr 84. (First MD, NJ, NY, etc packet map) [4] THE RACING PROBLEM: A PACKET SOLUTION, Bruninga, p 12-15, Third ARRL Computer Networking Conference, 15 Apr 84. (A connectionless protocol for reporting the location and status of Horses on a 100 mile endurence run. *(the original APRS concept) [5] EASTNET - A YEAR LATER, Bruninga p 15-24, Fourth ARRL Computer Networking Conference, 30 Mar 85. (More maps of the East Coast and the first USA HF map) [6] LINKING PERSONAL COMPUTERS BY PACKET RADIO, Bruninga, Proceedings, IEEE COMPCON 84 16 Sept 84, (Published the USA packet map, and amateur HF packet standards) [7] CONNECTIONLESS EMERGENCY TRAFFIC SYSTEM, Bruninga, Packet Radio Magazine, pg 4-5, July 86. (details the design of the connectionless position and status reporting system) [8] AN UPDATE ON THE CONNECTIONLESS EMERGENCY TRAFFIC SYSTEM, Bruninga, Packet Radio Magazine, Aug 86. (more of the same) [9] CONNECTIONLESS PROTOCOL for the NDMS, Bruninga, p 19, Packet Radio Magazine, Nov 86. (using the connectionless protocol for emergency comms) [10] PACKET RADIO AT THE WRECK OF THE AMTRACK COLONIAL, Bruninga, P 13 Packet Radio Magazine Jan 87. (using portable packet for disaster comms) [11] LANS and WANS, Bruninga, 7th ARRL Computer Networking Conference, 1 Oct 88 (First DC/BALTIMORE area packet maps with APRS symbols) [12] A WORLDWIDE PACKET RADIO NETWORK, Bruninga, Signal Magazine, June 88, (shows HF map of 10.149 MHz activity. [13] PACKETRADIO IM NOTFUNKEINSATZ BEI EINEM ZUNGUNGLUCK, RTTY magazine 18 Jan 87. (translation of article on APRS packet at the AMTRACK train wreck) CURRENT: [14] AUTOMATIC PACKET LOCATION SYSTEM (APLS), Bruninga, ARRL Gateway/QEX, Feb 1991. (early specification for position and status reporting formats) [15] GROUND STATION TRACKING VIA PACKET RADIO, Bruninga, AMSAT Journal, Pg 1 May/June 93 [16] TRACKIT RADIO, Stan Horzepa, p 92, QST, July 93 [17] UPFRONT IN QST, p 11, QST, August 93. (excellent pictures) [18] A DESCRIPTION OF APRS by WB4APR, AND MORE!, PACKET USERS NOTEBOOK, Buck Rogers, CQ Magazine, Dec 93 [19] INTERFACING GPS/LORAN DEVICES TO PACKET RADIO, Bruninga, pg 9-14, QEX, Feb 94 [20] HOMING IN, Radio Direction Finding, by Joe Moell, page 56-59, October 94 issue of 73 Magazine.