Chapter 17

Watch List, Geo-fences and Alerts

#Emergency beacon

Menu → Tools → Emergency beacon sends your position as an APRS EMERGENCY — the Mic-E "Emergency" status that radios, aprs.fi and other clients show as a distress call. Tick This is a real emergency to enable SEND EMERGENCY. It goes out on APRS-IS and every radio interface used for APRS, now and every 2 minutes, with your GPS position (or the QTH), speed, course and the word EMERGENCY. A TNC in text mode cannot send Mic-E, so it gets a normal position with EMERGENCY in the comment.

An ongoing notification shows while it runs; Stop emergency there, or the menu item (now EMERGENCY ON — tap to stop), ends it and sends one ordinary beacon so your last report is no longer an emergency.

#Emergency alerts

When the app hears another station's emergency — a Mic-E Emergency, or EMERGENCY in a position or status — it sounds an alarm, shows a high-priority notification with the station's distance and direction from you, and speaks it. Tap the notification for Station Detail and Find. Each station alerts at most once every 30 minutes.

#Watch list

Menu → Tools → Watchlist keeps an eye on particular stations — family, friends, a club vehicle. + Add takes a callsign (with or without SSID; without SSID matches every SSID) and an optional label. You get a notification when a watched station appears — the first time it is heard, or when it is heard again after 30 minutes or more of silence — and the list shows when it was last heard, its comment, and its distance and grid. Tap an entry for Station Detail, Centre Map, Log QSO or Remove. Watched stations are also the ones a TX iGate will gate positions for.

#Geo-fences

Menu → Radio Tools → Geo-Fence Alerts defines circular areas and notifies you when a station enters or leaves one — useful for event tracking ("runner 23 has reached the checkpoint"), seeing when a family member is nearly home, or knowing when the club bus arrives.

Every position heard — from APRS-IS or RF — is checked against each fence, and a notification Geo-fence: name — CALL entered/left name is raised when a station crosses the boundary.

#Proximity alert

Settings → Proximity Alert notifies you when a station comes within a set distance (1 to 25 km or miles) of your own GPS position, wherever you are — useful when driving to meet someone or looking for local stations on the move. Turn on Watch-list stations only to hear only about the stations you are watching. Each station alerts once, and again only after it has gone more than half as far again outside the distance. The notification gives its distance and direction from you. Your own callsign (any SSID) and objects are ignored, and nothing is checked without a GPS fix from the last 10 minutes.

#Spoken alerts

Turn on Settings → Spoken Alerts and new messages ("Message from G 4 A B C. …"), watch-list stations, geo-fence crossings and proximity alerts are also read out by the phone's text-to-speech voice. Callsigns are spelt out letter by letter. When a reply arrives in several parts, the sender is announced once and the parts are read on as one message. Speech is played as navigation guidance, so it lowers music and comes through the car speakers with Android Auto.

#Weather alerts

Set a wind speed and/or a low temperature in Settings → BEACONING. Any weather station heard — on APRS-IS or RF — that reaches a threshold raises a Weather Alert notification, repeated for the same station at most once an hour. Alerts work with the app's screen closed.

#Bulletin alerts

Described in chapter 9 — bulletins containing your keywords raise high-priority alerts.

#Notifications

You can change the sound, vibration and importance of each channel in Android Settings → Apps → G7JJF APRS Client → Notifications. Opening the Messages tab clears message notifications.