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Messages over APRS and MeshCom

This page shows you how to write, read and answer APRS messages in APRScaching, and where MeshCom messages appear. It is for operators with a callsign; at the end you can hold a conversation with another station and know which surface handles which kind of message.

Where messages appear

Surface What it holds
Messages → Conversations (signed in) Your own messages, one conversation per station: write, reply, and choose how each message is delivered.
Messages → On the air Every APRS text message the instance hears, from any station, and MeshCom direct messages.
Messages → MeshCom groups MeshCom group chat the instance's MeshCom nodes heard. Read only.
Settings → My radio (browser) → Local inbox The messages your own radio heard in this browser, with an ACK button for those addressed to you.
Shack → BBS Mail and bulletins on the instance's packet BBS, moved the F6FBB way. Never sent over APRS or MeshCom.
You → Logs sent over the air The commands you sent to the instance by radio, such as FOUND, waiting for you to confirm them.

Messages is in the left rail, or under More on a phone. It is radio messaging, separate from the BBS: a BBS message is never made from an APRS or MeshCom message, and never sent as one.

Write and answer messages

Signed in, Messages opens on Conversations: one row per station you exchanged messages with, newest first, with the last message and its state. Select a row to read the conversation and Reply at its foot.

A station is its base call: OE6BOB, OE6BOB-7 and OE6BOB-9 are one conversation, and each message names the exact call it came from or went to. Reply answers the call of the latest message. The instance's service call keeps a conversation of its own.

Messages from people who erased their account, or who no longer hold the call they wrote from, gather under Withdrawn correspondents. That conversation has no Reply: there is no station to answer.

Before you start

  • A verified callsign. Every message goes out on the air under your callsign, so until it is verified the form is locked and says why.

Steps

  1. Select New message, or open a conversation to reply in it.
  2. Enter To: a callsign such as OE5XYZ, or OE5XYZ-7 for one station. The field suggests the stations you wrote with.
  3. Enter the Message, up to 67 characters.
  4. Choose the Delivery:
    • Now sends it at once. With a USB or Bluetooth TNC connected in My radio and transmitting allowed for this tab, it goes out from your radio as your TX callsign. Otherwise the instance sends it to APRS-IS under your callsign, through its ingest box. The line under the choice says which.
    • When next heard leaves it in the Mailbox: the instance sends it the next time it hears the station, for up to 7 days.
  5. Select Send (or Leave message).

Each message carries a number, so the station's radio acknowledges it. The conversation shows its state:

State Means
queued Waiting for the instance's ingest box to send it to APRS-IS
sent Sent; no acknowledgement heard yet
acked The instance heard the station acknowledge it
not sent The instance could not send it within the hour
waiting until heard, sent, no ack yet, delivered, sent, never acked, expired A Mailbox message: What happens next

An ack counts only when the instance hears it: one your radio heard alone, without forwarding, leaves the message sent.

Read the messages the instance hears

  1. Open Messages and switch the view to On the air.
  2. The list shows the newest messages first, each with sender, recipient, age and the network that carried it. A message from or to your callsign (any SSID) is highlighted and offers Reply, which opens your conversation with the other station. Load more shows older ones.
  3. To read only your own traffic, select Mine: the list keeps the messages from or to any SSID of your callsign. All shows everything again.

The list holds what the instance heard over the air, from APRS-IS and from MeshCom, and the messages you sent from your radio in the browser or from your remote box, marked sent. A MeshCom message to a callsign is listed like an APRS message; a message to a MeshCom group is not. Acknowledgements are not listed. When nothing has arrived yet, the list says so.

Which network carried a message

A badge on each message names the network it came in on, or went out on:

Badge Means
RF Heard on the air by a TNC on the instance's ingest box, or sent by your remote box
Browser radio Heard or sent by a radio connected to a browser
MeshCom Heard through a MeshCom node on the instance's ingest box
Meshtastic Heard through Meshtastic
APRS-IS Received from APRS-IS, over the internet
AXUDP, AXIP Received over an internet link between packet nodes
Other Received on a port the instance does not know

The edge of the badge takes the map's colour for on the air, the internet or a mesh, so the families stand apart at a glance. The network says how a message arrived, not who sent it: anyone can put a message on APRS-IS. A message stored without its network shows no badge.

Send an APRS message from your radio

Before you start

Steps

  1. In Settings → My radio (browser), allow transmitting for this tab: answer Allow when the radio connects, or switch on Transmit in this tab (Allow transmitting for this tab). From Messages, Open My radio takes you there.
  2. Check the TX callsign SSID, -7 by default.
  3. Under Message, enter the recipient's callsign in to (up to nine characters) and the text in message (up to 67 characters).
  4. Select Send, then Transmit in the confirmation.

The app shows Transmitted: message to . The message goes out with the path WIDE1-1 and a message number, so the recipient's station acknowledges it. It joins the Messages list, marked sent.

Acknowledge a message sent to you

The Local inbox in the Field station panel lists the messages your radio heard, newest first. When a message to your callsign carries a message number, and transmitting is allowed for this tab, the row shows ACK and that number.

  1. Select ACK .
  2. The app shows ACK → once your radio has sent it.

The browser never acknowledges on its own: each ack is a transmission you choose to make.

MeshCom direct messages

When the instance runs a MeshCom node, a direct message between two callsigns that the node receives appears in Messages like an APRS message. Group and broadcast text (* or a group number) is addressed to no one in particular and stays out of the list: it has its own view.

Read MeshCom group chat

When the instance's MeshCom nodes have heard a group message, Messages adds a MeshCom groups view beside Conversations and On the air. Without one, the view is not there.

  1. Open Messages and switch the view to MeshCom groups.
  2. Pick a Group. Each group shows how many messages the instance keeps; All (*) is the group every node reads.
  3. The newest messages come first, each with sender, age, and the node that heard it and how: heard directly, relayed on the mesh or from the MeshCom server. Load more shows older ones.

A message heard by several nodes, or twice, is listed once. The instance keeps group messages as long as the other messages, 7 days unless its sysop changes that. The view is read only.

You cannot write a MeshCom message in the app: write it on your own MeshCom node. The instance sends MeshCom messages only from its service call: answers to commands, Mailbox messages and near-cache messages, through the node that heard the station, when its sysop allows that (MeshCom). A direct message to the service call is a command (below).

Leave a message in the Mailbox

The Mailbox holds a short message for a station until the instance hears it on the air, then sends it as an APRS message from the instance's service call. It is separate from the BBS: a Mailbox message never becomes BBS mail, and the BBS never sends over APRS.

Before you start

  • You're signed in, and your callsign is verified: the instance puts your text on the air in your name.

Steps

  1. Open Messages, select New message (or open the conversation with the station), and choose When next heard under Delivery.
  2. Enter To: a callsign such as OE5XYZ, or OE5XYZ-7 for one station.
  3. Enter the Message. It goes out as de <your call>: <text>, so it holds up to 67 characters with that prefix.
  4. Select Leave message.

From your radio, send MAIL OE5XYZ <text> to the service call instead. A copy heard only over the internet waits under You → Logs sent over the air until you confirm it.

What happens next

Mail to a base call goes to whichever of its stations the instance hears first; mail to OE5XYZ-7 waits for that station. The station's radio acknowledges the numbered message. The conversation shows each message's state:

State Means
waiting until heard Not heard yet
sent, no ack yet Sent; the instance tries again when it hears the station, at most once a minute
delivered The station acknowledged it
sent, never acked Sent five times without an ack
expired Not heard within 7 days

Withdraw takes back a message that is still waiting or unacknowledged. A message left for you shows in the conversation with its sender, waiting until heard, until the instance hears your station. A station heard on MeshCom gets its messages through the node that heard it. Only when that node is the sysop's own, reached over KISS, does the message come from the service call with a number the station acks; otherwise it goes out once, under the node's call, and shows sent, never acked.

Commands you send by radio

A message to the instance's service call is a command, whether it travels over APRS or as a MeshCom direct message:

Message Does
FOUND <code>, DNF <code>, NOTE <code> <text> Logs a find, a did-not-find or a note: Log from your radio
MAIL <call> <text> Leaves a message in the Mailbox for that station
NEAR ON, NEAR OFF Switches the radio message you get near a cache: The "you're near" prompt
HELP Replies with the command list
VERIFY <code> Completes your callsign verification: On the air

A command heard only over the internet waits under You → Logs sent over the air until you confirm it.

Field alerts on Pocket

A Pocket phone can vibrate within 15 seconds when a new direct message reaches the phone's own callsign, any SSID, over MeshCom or APRS. It can also say who sent the message, and read the text aloud only when you allow that, since a phone speaks to everyone around it. Field alerts are off by default; Pocket extras turns them on.

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