MARS APRS — User Guide

APRS Tracker Map — User Guide

Version 1.23.0 · August 15, 2026

This document is a guide for users of the MARS APRS system. For technical details on the architecture and software see the README file.

Contents

The Concept of Events

When you first come to the website, you will see a map configured for the current default event. A user with admin privileges can switch to a different default event, which all new visitors will then see, using an administrative page described later.

You are free to make a variety of changes to how the map and various objects appear and are treated. So long as you don't Save your view (which requires an admin account) the changes you make are strictly local and won't affect what other users see.

Large vs. Small Screens

Instructions that refer to large screens (desktops or laptops) are indicated by the letter (L). Instructions for smaller screens (phones and tablets) are indicated by an (S).

Full-Screen on Mobile Devices (S)

The map is designed to run full-screen on phones and tablets, with no browser address bar or tab bar visible. How to achieve this depends on your device and browser.

iOS and iPadOS — Safari

The first time you visit the site, a nudge appears at the bottom of the screen:

For full-screen: tap Share ⬆ → Add to Home Screen

Tap Share ⬆ in the Safari toolbar, choose Add to Home Screen, and confirm. From then on, opening the site from your home screen runs it as a standalone app — no address bar, no tab bar.

Tap ✕ on the nudge to dismiss it permanently. It will not appear again.

iOS and iPadOS — Chrome

The same nudge appears, but the instruction reads:

For full-screen: tap ⋯ → Add to Home Screen

After adding it to your home screen, the site opens in full-screen standalone mode just like Safari.

Android — Chrome

Chrome on Android automatically hides the address bar as you scroll, so no nudge is needed. For a permanently full-screen experience, tap ⋮ (the three-dot menu) → Add to Home Screen to pin the site as a home screen app.

Native App (iOS & Android)

In addition to the web map at marsaprs.org, a native app is available for iPhone and Android. It provides the same live tracker map and location sharing as the web map, with one key advantage: location sharing continues in the background — your GPS position keeps updating even when the screen is locked or you switch to another app.

Getting the App

iPhone / iPad

  1. Install TestFlight from the App Store (free, by Apple).
  2. Open the invitation email from the event coordinator and tap View in TestFlight.
  3. If you are a new TestFlight user, enter the redeem code from the email when prompted.
  4. Tap Install to install the app.

For future updates, open TestFlight and tap Update next to APRS Map.

Android

  1. On your Android phone or tablet, go to marsaprs.org/android and tap Download the App. This link always serves the current release, so it is worth bookmarking.
  2. When prompted, open the file with Package Installer.
  3. If Android warns that the app is from an unknown source, tap More details → Install anyway.
  4. Tap Open when installation completes.

To update later, download from the same link and install over the top — your settings are kept.

The first time you run the app it will ask for location permission — tap Allow. When you first tap Share Location the app will also ask for notification and battery permissions; grant both (see Share Location in the App).

Event password: Each time the app opens you will be prompted for the event password (provided by the event administrator). The password is shown as plain text so you can see what you are typing.

First launch: The first time the app opens it displays a Quick Start guide with a brief overview of the main features. Tap Continue in the top bar (or the Continue button at the bottom) to proceed to the map. You can return to the Quick Start at any time by tapping Help in the drawer footer, then Quick Start.

App Drawer

The app has its own native drawer — separate from the web map's ⚙ gear drawer. Open it by tapping the ☰ menu icon in the upper-left corner of the screen, or by swiping right from the left edge.

The drawer header shows the app name and the current event. The body has collapsible sections:

Section Contents
Trackers Colored dot, ID, name, and elapsed time. Tap to close the drawer, center the map, and blink the marker; the breadcrumb trail appears on the map. Long-press to do the same and also zoom in.
Courses Tap the eye icon (👁) to show or hide each course overlay.
Backgrounds Tap an entry to switch the base tile layer.
Aid Stations Tap to close the drawer, center the map, and blink the marker. Long-press to do the same and also zoom in.
iGates Tap to close the drawer, center the map, and blink the marker. Long-press to do the same and also zoom in.

Each section header carries an eye icon (👁) on the right that shows or hides everything in that section on the map. The Trackers header has two extra eyes to the left of it that control what the map labels say rather than hiding markers: the first for the tracker ID, the second for the Name. A dimmed, slashed eye means that part is off — with both on a label reads M083 James, with only the ID eye on it reads M083, and with both off the tracker labels disappear while the markers remain. All of these are remembered between launches.

The drawer footer has buttons:

Button Action
Share Location / Sharing When not sharing: opens the location sharing dialog. When sharing (shown in green): opens a panel to stop sharing. Only shown when the event administrator has enabled mobile tracking.
Save Map Save the current map position and zoom as your personal default.
Reload Tiles Download fresh map tiles for the current view. See Reload Tiles below.
Help Opens a panel showing organization, app version and build number, event name, your assigned callsign (while sharing), map attribution, and copyright — with buttons for Quick Start (built-in guide), User Guide, and Submit a Bug or Suggestion.
Exit Close the app.

Tapping markers on the map

Short tap on any tracker, igate, or aid station marker opens a detail panel from the bottom of the screen showing the name, GPS coordinates, and — for trackers and iGates — the callsign and time since last beacon. Tap anywhere outside the panel to dismiss it.

Long-press any marker (tracker, igate, or aid station) to open Google Maps in the browser, centered on that location.

Each tracker's map marker shows the tracker ID (such as "H1") as a label next to the dot, so you can identify trackers at a glance without opening the drawer.

Reload Tiles

The Reload Tiles button in the drawer footer downloads and caches map tiles for the area currently visible on screen. Use this before heading into areas with poor cell coverage to ensure the map background stays visible when you go offline. Cached tiles are used automatically when the network is unavailable. Map tiles are served through the MARS server, which keeps a permanent copy of event areas, so this download is fast and reliable even at the start of a busy event.

Share Location in the App

The key advantage of the native app over the web map is that location sharing continues in the background — your GPS position keeps updating even when the screen is locked or you switch to another app. You do not need to keep the screen on or stay in the app.

Starting:

  1. Tap Share Location in the drawer footer.
  2. Enter your first name (pre-filled if you have shared before) and the event PIN. Both are shown as plain text.
  3. Optional — Ham Radio Callsign: If you are also transmitting via an APRS-capable ham radio, tap Ham Radio Callsign? to expand the field and enter your base callsign (e.g., W6SG) and SSID (e.g., 4). When set, you become a hybrid tracker — your position data comes from both the app and your radio, and your marker on the map is shown as a triangle. Leave this collapsed if you are using the app only.
  4. Tap Share Location. Sharing begins immediately.
  5. A confirmation shows your assigned APRS callsign. Your name appears in the Trackers list and you are visible on the map.

Smart Track — The app automatically adjusts the beacon frequency based on your GPS speed. Sharing starts in unknown (?) mode and within about 90 seconds Smart Track determines whether you are stationary, walking/running, cycling, or driving, and sets the appropriate interval: stationary (2 min) · walk/run (60 s) · cycle (30 s) · drive (15 s). No action is needed on your part. Beacon intervals and distance thresholds are configured by the event administrator and may differ from these defaults.

Stopping:

Tap Sharing (green) in the drawer footer, then tap Stop Sharing.

Auto-resume: If you close and reopen the app while sharing was active, sharing resumes automatically with the same callsign and activity mode. A brief notification confirms it.

Distance-triggered upload: In addition to the timed interval, the app sends an immediate beacon whenever you move past the configured distance threshold since your last upload. After a distance-triggered upload the timer resets, so you will not receive a redundant beacon moments later.

First-time setup — Android: When you tap Share Location for the first time, the app will prompt for two permissions:

  1. Notifications — grant this so the foreground service notification can appear. Without it, Android will stop the background location service when the screen locks.
  2. Battery optimization — tap Allow so Android does not put the app to sleep between GPS updates.

A persistent notification ("APRS Map — Sharing your location") appears in the notification bar while sharing is active. To confirm it is running: wake the screen and swipe down from the top.

First-time setup — iOS: When you first tap Share Location, iOS may ask to upgrade your location access from "While Using" to "Always". Tap Change to Always Allow — this is required for the app to report your position while the screen is off.

Limitations

The native app does not include every feature available in the browser. The following are only available on the web map:

Feature Where to find it
Admin page marsaprs.org/admin/ in a browser
Kiosk Mode Web map footer
Origin marker (distance & bearing) Right-click on the web map
Clients panel Web map sidebar footer

Apple Watch (iPhone only)

The iPhone app includes an Apple Watch companion. Install it from the iPhone's Watch app if it does not appear by itself: My Watch → APRS Map → Show App on Apple Watch.

The watch does messaging only. It never shares your position and never beacons — that stays with the phone.

What each device does. The phone is the loudspeaker and the watch is the microphone. Your phone announces arriving messages aloud even from a pocket, so you hear who is calling without looking at anything; the watch's job is to let you answer. If the watch app is on screen when a message arrives, it reads it out instead — only one of them ever speaks.

On screen includes a dimmed screen. With the watch app open you will hear messages from your wrist even with your arm down and the display dimmed, which is the normal way to wear a watch during an event. The phone takes over only when you leave the app.

Answering. Press and hold the Talk button, speak, and let go. Releasing sends it — there is no confirmation step to find and no button to hunt for afterwards. The name above the button is where your reply is going.

Where your reply goes. The destination follows the traffic: whoever last messaged you becomes the target, so the announcement you just heard is also a statement of who you are about to answer. Swipe to the Reply to page to aim somewhere else. Answering a message sent to All Trackers goes back to the station that called, not to the whole net — broadcasting stays deliberate.

Four pages, swiped sideways: Talk, Messages (what has arrived), Reply to (choose a destination), and Settings.

If a reply does not go out — the phone is off, out of range, or the destination has gone — a small orange warning appears at the top of the Talk page with a count. Tap it to open the Outbox: it shows what you said, and offers Retry (which sends it to your current destination) or Discard. Nothing you speak is thrown away silently.

When the phone is away. The watch keeps working on its own over WiFi or cellular, polling for messages and sending replies directly. The status line tells you which is happening: Phone linked, Direct — phone away, or Phone unreachable.

Stopping it. While the watch is speaking, a Stop button appears at the top of the Talk page showing how much is left to say. It clears everything waiting, not just the sentence in progress.

One limitation worth knowing. watchOS only lets an app make sound while its app is showing (dimmed counts; switched away does not). With your phone switched off or out of range and the watch app not showing, nothing will reach you until you raise your wrist — at which point the watch catches up and reads out what it missed. Whenever the phone is alive, it covers this.

Checking it yourself. Settings → Diagnostics → Test audio when dimmed starts a countdown; lower your wrist and listen. The result line says whether the watch was given the audio session and whether it actually spoke — useful if you are ever unsure which device is supposed to be talking.

Main Map

Open the map at marsaprs.org.

Map controls

The sidebar on the left lists all sections. Each section header has these controls:

The sidebar width is adjustable: drag the divider bar between the sidebar and the map. The width is saved in your browser and never affects other users.

On phones and tablets (any small device with a touch screen), the map takes up the full screen and the sidebar is replaced by a slide-in drawer.

Opening the Drawer

Tap the gear icon (⚙) in the upper-right corner of the screen to open the drawer. Tap anywhere outside the drawer, or tap the gear icon again, to close it.

Drawer Sections

The drawer is organized into collapsible sections. Tap a section header to expand it; the previously open section closes automatically. Each section header also has a visibility checkbox: when checked, that section's objects appear on the map; when unchecked, they are hidden and the rows dim. Tapping the checkbox toggles visibility without collapsing or expanding the section.

Section Contents
Trackers Colored dot, ID, name, elapsed time. Short tap blinks and shows breadcrumb history. Long press blinks, shows history, closes the drawer, and zooms to the tracker.
Courses Toggle course overlays on/off.
Backgrounds Switch the base tile layer.
Aid Stations Tap to zoom to an aid station and show its label. Hidden if none are configured.
iGates Same as Aid Stations. Hidden if none are configured.
Help Version, organization, and map attribution. Shows your assigned APRS callsign while you are sharing your location. Also contains buttons for the User Guide and to submit a bug or suggestion.

The footer of the drawer contains action buttons arranged in a grid: Help, Save Map, Kiosk Mode, Admin, and (when enabled by the administrator) Share Location / Sharing. When subscribed to messaging, a Broadcast button also appears.

The Trackers section is open by default when the drawer is first displayed.

Tracker List (L,S)

Each tracker appears in the sidebar, sorted by ID, with a colored dot, the ID (such as "H1"), a full name, and the time since its last beacon was received.

Dot color Meaning
Green Heard within the last 2 minutes
Blue Heard within the last 5 minutes
Red Not heard for more than 5 minutes

Marker shapes: Regular trackers use the shape configured by the administrator (circle, square, diamond, etc.). Mobile participants sharing their location via the Share Location feature appear as a rounded square (both on the map and in the sidebar) to distinguish them from fixed APRS trackers.

Activity icons (mobile trackers): A small icon appears next to each mobile tracker's name showing its current activity mode: a walking figure (walk/run), bicycle (cycle), car (drive), or pin (stationary). A ? is shown briefly when a tracker first starts sharing, while Smart Track takes its initial GPS readings. This typically resolves within 90 seconds.

When a tracker has not been heard for more than 5 minutes its sidebar entry shows stale in red instead of an elapsed time. Hovering over the marker on the map shows the actual elapsed time (e.g., ">2h 15m ago").

The tracker's marker on the map and sidebar entry both update every 5 seconds.

Clicking a tracker (L)

  1. First click — The tracker's map marker and sidebar entry blink for 5 seconds. Up to 10 recent beacon positions appear as "breadcrumbs" on the map as small dots connected by a dashed line with directional arrows. The dots blink in sync with the tracker marker. Hover over any dot to see when that position was received and, if available, the APRS path it traveled (iGates and digipeaters it passed through). Consecutive duplicate beacons (the same position reported twice in a row) are collapsed into a single breadcrumb. Positions that are less than 100 feet from the previous breadcrumb are also suppressed — only meaningful movement creates a new dot. The breadcrumb trail updates automatically as the tracker moves. The trail color matches the tracker's current staleness color (green/blue/red) and updates in real time.

  2. Second click — The map zooms to the tracker's last known position.

  3. Third click — The map resets to the default view and hides the history dots and breadcrumbs.

Clicking a different tracker while one is selected immediately switches focus to the new one and hides the previous tracker's history.

If a tracker has not yet reported a position, a notification appears instead of zooming.

Tapping a tracker (S)

On phones and tablets the tracker list uses touch gestures instead of a click cycle:

The same tap / long-press behavior applies to Aid Stations and iGates in the drawer.

Native app: tapping a tracker in the sidebar also forces its full ID and name to show as a label on the map — even if that label is normally hidden — reverting to your configured label settings on the next action.

Pinning a place on the map (native app)

Long-press anywhere on the map to pin that spot. A purple pin drops, and from then on the map will not let it leave the view: pan and zoom freely and it stays on screen, sliding to the edge rather than off it.

It is for scanning around something without losing it — an aid station, an incident, the finish. On a phone at a net's zoom levels, panning two screens away from the thing you are working around is easy to do and easy not to notice.

To let go: tap the pin, or do anything that moves the map somewhere specific — center on a tracker, go to your own location, or restore the saved view. Each of those is a request to be somewhere, and the pin releases rather than fighting it.

No coordinates are shown. The pin is a constraint, not a measurement.

To open Google Maps centered on any tracker, igate, or aid station, long-press its marker on the map (not in the drawer).

Tapping a different tracker switches focus to that tracker.

Courses (L,S)

Each course entry in the sidebar is a named route overlay (GPX, KML, or GeoJSON file).

A course does not have to be a route. A GeoJSON file of Points — mile markers, aid stops, gates — is a perfectly ordinary course, and is drawn as labelled dots rather than as a line. The label comes from the file (title or name), which matters: an operator hearing "at marker four" has to be able to find marker four. Points are never joined into a line, because a polyline threaded through mile markers would look like a route and would not be one.

Multiple courses can be visible simultaneously. When they overlap, the course listed first in the sidebar appears on top; courses lower in the list are drawn underneath. To change the stacking order, reorder the courses in the Admin page.

Each course is displayed in its configured color and line style (solid, dashed, dotted, or dash-dot). These are set in the Admin page.

Courses always appear above iGates but below Aid Stations and Trackers, regardless of background or zoom level.

Aid Stations and iGates (L, S)

Aid stations and iGates appear as black dots on the map.

Hidden layers (eyeball off): Selecting an aid station or iGate reveals it even when its layer is hidden. On the web map, a second click on a sidebar entry shows the object's full label, zooms to it, and blinks it — even if the eyeball is off — reverting on your next action. In the native app, tapping a hidden iGate or aid station displays it on the map as though its eyeball were on, again reverting on your next action.

When an iGate has a callsign configured, its sidebar entry blinks green for 5 seconds each time a listed tracker's beacon is received through it (i.e., the station's callsign appears in the APRS-IS q-construct path of the packet). Aid stations do not blink — they are places on the course rather than receiving stations.

In kiosk mode, aid station names are shown permanently as floating black labels with transparent backgrounds.

Backgrounds (L,S)

The Backgrounds section lists the available tile layers (e.g., OpenStreetMap, satellite, topo). Click any entry to switch to that base map. The active layer shows a ✓.

Some tile providers only support a limited zoom level. If you switch to one and were zoomed in beyond its maximum, the map automatically zooms out to the highest level that provider supports.

Share Location (S)

When the event administrator has enabled mobile location sharing, a Share Location button appears in the drawer footer. This lets you broadcast your GPS position to the APRS network so other participants can see you on the map.

Location sharing is available on: - The web map (marsaprs.org) — works in any mobile browser - The native iOS/Android app — provides background location updates (see below)

Starting:

  1. Tap Share Location at the bottom of the drawer.
  2. Enter your first name (pre-filled if you have shared before) and the event PIN. Both fields are shown as plain text.
  3. Optionally expand the Ham Radio section to enter your base callsign and SSID if you are also transmitting via an APRS ham radio.
  4. Tap Share Location. Sharing begins immediately.
  5. A confirmation shows your assigned APRS callsign (e.g., K6DRK-01). You will appear in the Trackers list and be visible on the map. Your callsign is also shown in the About section of the drawer while sharing is active.

Your position is transmitted at the current interval and appears on this map and on external APRS sites such as aprs.fi and CalTopo.

Smart Track — The map automatically adjusts the beacon frequency based on your GPS speed. Sharing starts in unknown (?) mode and within about 90 seconds Smart Track determines whether you are stationary, walking/running, cycling, or driving, and sets the appropriate interval: stationary (2 min) · walk/run (60 s) · cycle (30 s) · drive (15 s). Beacon intervals are configured by the event administrator and may differ from these defaults.

Stopping:

Tap Sharing in the drawer footer, then tap Stop Sharing.

Callsign persistence: The system remembers your device across sessions. If you stop sharing and start again you will be assigned the same callsign as before, so your track history is continuous.

Auto-resume (native app only): If the app is closed or restarted while sharing was active, sharing resumes automatically when the app reopens — no need to re-enter your name and PIN. A brief notification confirms the resume.

Notes:

Web map (browser): - A red Sharing badge appears in the upper-right corner of the map while you are sharing, and blinks briefly each time a beacon is sent. - The screen stays on while you are sharing (the browser's Wake Lock prevents sleep). The screen dims after 30 seconds of no interaction to save battery; tap anywhere to restore full brightness. - If the browser is sent to the background or the screen locks, position updates will stop.

Native iOS/Android app: - Location sharing continues in the background while the screen is locked. You do not need to keep the app in the foreground. - Android: When you first tap Share Location, the app may ask for permission to show notifications and to run without battery restrictions. Grant both — they are required for the app to keep running in the background when the screen is off. A notification ("APRS Map — Sharing your location") will appear in the notification bar while sharing is active; this confirms the background service is running. To confirm the notification is visible, wake the screen and swipe down from the top. - iOS: When you first tap Share Location, iOS may ask to upgrade your location permission from "While Using" to "Always". Tap Change to Always Allow — this is required for the app to send your location while the screen is locked.

App updates: When a newer version of the native app is available, it shows a dismissable Update available prompt on launch. Tap Update to get it from the App Store (iOS) or download the latest APK (Android), or Later to postpone — updates are never forced.

Messaging (L, S)

When the event administrator has enabled messaging, net control operators and mobile tracker participants can exchange real-time text messages — one-to-one, in named groups, or broadcast to everyone. Messaging now works like a familiar chat app: persistent conversations, delivery and read receipts, optional photo attachments, and text that can be read aloud.

For Operators (web map)

An Operator is any web user who has subscribed to the messaging channel for the current event.

Subscribing:

  1. Click the Messaging button in the sidebar (it appears when messaging is enabled and you are not yet subscribed).
  2. Enter your name (shown to everyone you message) and the messaging password (provided by the event administrator).
  3. Click Subscribe. Your subscription is remembered in the browser, so on future visits you are re-subscribed automatically without re-entering the password.

The chat panel:

Messaging opens as a chat panel docked to the right of the map, in two parts:

The list is in three labelled sections, because the column answers three different questions. Under Monitor are the views you watch rather than send to: Everything, the whole event in one chronological feed, and — if you have switched them on — Radio audio & text, what the receivers heard. Under All Trackers sits To/From Everyone: every message to or from a tracker, and a composer that reaches all of them at once. Under Individual Trackers below that come the conversations themselves.

The split that matters is the second one: broadcast versus individual is how many people hear what you type, and it has a heading rather than being inferred from a row's position.

In that lower section, conversations whose other end has not been seen for a day are hidden, on the same 24-hour rule the New message list uses — you are looking for someone to talk to, and a station that left the event yesterday is not that. Anything unread, and whatever thread you have open, stays regardless, so the list cannot empty out under you mid-read. - Resizing — drag the left edge of the message window to make it wider or narrower, and drag the divider between the conversation list and the messages to rebalance them. Both are remembered for next time.

Thread + composer — the selected conversation's messages, newest at the bottom, with an always-visible message box that is never covered by an incoming message. New messages appear live as they arrive — nothing to reload.

The message box says where what you type is going. It reads Message to M001 Doug in a conversation, Broadcast to everyone under All Trackers, and Write a log entry… while Everything is open — because a line meant for one operator reaching the whole net is not a typo you can take back.

Every list is drawn the same way: one compact row per message, sender and recipient on the left, a date and 12-hour time on the right, and the text beneath. A recording carries a play button showing its length. Opening any list lands you on the newest message.

Starting a conversation or group:

Click New message to see the list of mobile trackers. Pick one recipient for a direct chat, several for a group, or choose Send to Everyone to broadcast to every mobile participant. You can also click a tracker in the sidebar to open a conversation already addressed to that participant. Radio-only trackers are not listed — they cannot receive messages.

The list shows only participants you can actually reach: anyone whose app has checked in within the last 24 hours. Someone temporarily out of coverage still appears and can still be messaged — their phone receives everything the moment it reconnects — but people from a previous event drop off and no longer clutter the list.

One person carrying two phones:

A volunteer sometimes carries two devices — a phone and a spare, or an iPhone and an Android. Each device is a separate session, so without help they would appear twice in the list and you would never be sure which one to use.

Instead, two devices showing the same ID and the same name are treated as one person and appear as a single row marked 2 devices. Message them once and both phones receive it — so it doesn't matter which one they happen to be holding. When they reply, the message appears as coming from that one person, whichever device they used, and everything stays in a single conversation.

This works because you control the ID — the short label like CRD or LKL that you set on the Admin page. Give a volunteer's second phone the same ID and name as the first, and from that moment they are one recipient. Their callsigns stay separate and unchanged behind the scenes, so APRS and the map are unaffected.

If you had already been messaging one of the phones on its own, that conversation is not lost — its history moves into the merged conversation, so you keep one thread with the whole story rather than two.

Several people sharing one ID:

When one ID covers different people — say LKL Dirck and LKL Jerry are both at Lake Lagunitas — they each keep their own row, and you get one extra option: LKL (multiple). Choose it to reach everyone at that location in a single message. Pick a person's own row instead when you want just them.

The list is alphabetical by ID, and each (multiple) row sits directly above the people it covers — who are indented beneath it, with a small gap before the next location, so each station reads as one cluster:

CM (multiple)     2 people at CM
    CM Fred                        Online
    CM Liz                         Offline

CRD Stanton       2 devices        Online

LKL (multiple)    2 people at LKL
    LKL Dirck                      Online
    LKL Jerry                      Offline

The (multiple) row also tells you how many people it reaches, and a person carrying two phones shows 2 devices on their single row.

Checking a location checks everyone in it. Tick CM (multiple) and all of CM's people are ticked with it. You can then untick anyone you want to leave out — the others stay ticked, and the (multiple) row simply clears to show you are no longer sending to the whole location. Tick that last person again and the group row fills back in. Unticking (multiple) clears the whole location at once.

The right-hand column shows Online (green) or Offline (red) for each person. Someone carrying two phones counts as Online if either phone has checked in recently — they are reachable, whichever one they are holding. (multiple) rows show no status, since they stand for several people at once. Offline is not a barrier: the message is delivered the moment that phone reconnects.

Receipts reflect this. For one person with two phones, you see the ordinary Delivered ✓ / Read ✓✓ as soon as either phone has it — it is still one person. For an (multiple) conversation you see the group wording, Delivered to 2 of 3, because those really are separate people.

Sending:

Type up to 1,000 characters and press Send. (The box also accepts far more text than it used to, so a dictated message is no longer cut off part-way.) To attach a photo, click the Attach (📷) button, choose an image, and send it with or without text; recipients see a thumbnail they can click to view full-size.

Voice: Click the microphone button to dictate a message instead of typing (uses your browser's speech recognition; best in Chrome/Edge).

Delivery & read receipts: Each message you send shows its status — Delivered ✓ when it reaches the recipient's device and Read ✓✓ once opened. In a group the status reads Delivered to 2 of 3 / Read by 1 of 3.

Copying a message: Each message carries a small copy icon beside its timestamp. It copies the message text only — no sender, no timestamp, no receipt — which is what belongs in a log entry, an email, or an incident report. The icon turns into a green tick to confirm.

Read aloud: Arriving messages are spoken aloud by default — you are usually watching the map rather than the message panel. Each is announced as “From CRD Stanton”, then a short pause, then the message itself — so you know who is calling without looking at the screen, and the name does not run into the first words. When speech is off, a short alert tone plays instead; a volume slider sets its level (0 mutes).

A message addressed to you is spoken whatever you are looking at — reading another conversation, or with the panel closed entirely. It used to be read only while its own thread was on screen, which meant the person a message was for could be the only one who did not hear it.

Three switches, one place. The speaker icon is gone; all three live behind the ⚙ gear in the message bar:

Switch What it does
Speak text messages Reads arriving messages aloud. On by default
Hear radio traffic Plays the recordings as transmissions arrive, and adds the Radio audio & text row
Receive all messages Follows typed traffic between other stations, so it can be read aloud too

The last two are off by default: they subscribe this window to traffic you are not part of, and a console that starts talking about other people's messages unasked is a surprise. Turning one on starts from now, so it never dumps a backlog mid-net. Arriving recordings play one at a time — two overs talking over each other are unintelligible and sound like a receiver fault.

Settings (in the panel): the three switches above, Change my name, the alert volume, View all messages, Manage operators (rename or disconnect another console, if you have permission), or Sign out of messaging.

View all messages:

Click All Messages at the top of the conversation list — or View all in the panel toolbar — to see the complete message log for the event — every message, in both directions, including other operators' conversations — as a scrollable, searchable feed. Type in the search box to filter by text, name, or ID, and click any message to jump into that conversation's thread and reply. Messages sent from a mobile tracker show a location pin — click it to centre the map on where the sender last reported (with a popup showing the sender, time, and message; if their position predates the message, the popup says so). Operators signed in with the Delete All Messages permission also see:

The Event Log:

Not everything worth recording is worth sending to anyone. Times, arrivals, decisions, a vehicle description passed over the radio — the net's own account of itself. The Event Log is where that goes, so it lives beside the traffic instead of on paper next to the keyboard.

Write an entry with the 📋 Log button beside New message, or press Ctrl+L (⌘L on a Mac) from anywhere with the panel open — the cursor lands in the box ready to type, so an entry can be made mid-net without reaching for the mouse.

Entries are stored and sent nowhere. No tracker receives them, no phone or watch chimes, and no receipt comes back. They appear only in the Event Log thread — reached with that same 📋 Log button or Ctrl+L, not from the conversations list — each stamped with who wrote it — the log is shared between operators and gets read later by someone reconstructing what happened, so every entry names its author, including your own.

Mobile trackers never see the log, and it appears in View all messages alongside everything else, marked as going to Log, so an exported CSV carries the log and the traffic together in one timeline.

Using two screens:

With two monitors, the map can have one and messaging the other, instead of the panel covering the map exactly when both matter.

Choose Open messages in a separate window from the panel's settings menu and drag the new window to the second monitor. It fills that window completely — the map, sidebar and controls are gone — and the browser remembers where you put it. Choosing it again focuses the window you already have rather than opening another.

The two windows share your sign-in automatically, so there is nothing to log into twice. Open it from the map window's menu, though — a messages window opened from a bookmark, another browser, or a different profile has no sign-in to inherit and will say so.

They also work together:

To fill the whole monitor without browser chrome, use your browser's full-screen key (F11, or ⌃⌘F on a Mac).

Operator auto-login (Display Pis without keyboards):

Operators using a Display Pi such as NetControl can be subscribed automatically at boot — no keyboard needed. The system administrator configures this via ~/autologin.txt on the Pi; see your administrator for setup details.

For Mobile Tracker Participants (native app)

The app includes a full chat screen that mirrors the operators' panel. Open it with the Message (💬) button in the drawer footer (visible while sharing).

Conversations: The screen opens on your Conversations list, each entry showing the other party and an unread count. Tap one to open its thread, or tap New message to Start a conversation with an operator — or Start a group with several people. Each participant shows Online / Offline presence, and the picker opens with your previous recipients already ticked — during an event you usually message the same station repeatedly. Cancel closes it without starting anything.

The people list shows only those you can reach — operators and participants active in the last 24 hours — so names left over from earlier events no longer appear. Operators are listed first, separated by a line from the trackers below, and each group is alphabetical. As on the operator panel, someone carrying two phones appears once and receives your message on both, a location covering several people offers an (multiple) option that reaches all of them, and the right-hand column reads Online (green) or Offline (red).

Sending: Type up to 1,000 characters in the message box and tap Send. (It used to stop at 280, which cut dictated messages off mid-word — a message spoken for thirty seconds needs the room.) Tap Attach photo to Take a photo or Choose from library; the image sends with or without text, and either party can tap a photo to view it full-screen.

Receipts: Your sent messages show Delivered ✓ and Read ✓✓ (or Delivered to N of M / Read by N of M in a group).

Read aloud: Arriving messages are spoken aloud by default — this is a net-control tool and you are usually not watching the screen. Each is announced as “From CRD Stanton”, then a short pause, then the message. Tap the ⚙ gear icon in the top bar for What you see and hear, and turn Speak text messages off to mute; your choices are remembered. The icon itself tells you where you stand: filled if anything is switched on, outlined if nothing is.

Stopping it. Whenever anything is being spoken or played, a Stop button appears at the bottom of the screen showing how many items are waiting and roughly how long they will take — both, because “six waiting” could be twenty seconds or four minutes. Tap it to clear everything, not just the sentence in progress.

Nothing ever interrupts anything else: a new message waits for the current one to finish. And nothing more than five minutes old is read aloud, measured from when it was sent — so coming back from a spell without signal does not start a recital of a net that has moved on. The messages themselves all still arrive and are waiting in their threads; only the speaking is rationed.

Following the whole event. By default you see only what was sent to you. The ⚙ gear icon in the top bar opens What you see and hear, with three switches:

Switch What it does
Speak text messages Every text message on this phone is read aloud; off means an alert tone instead
Hear radio traffic Plays the receivers’ recordings, just after each transmission
Receive all messages You see everything anyone sends, whoever it was addressed to — not just yours

Speak text messages covers everything the phone shows you. Turn Receive all messages on as well and the rest of the net is read aloud too — there is no second switch to find.

Followed traffic appears at the top of the message list as one row per switch, and never raises a notification — on a busy net that is a message every few seconds, and a phone that buzzed for each would be unusable within a minute. If you were offline for a while, it tells you how many it skipped rather than leaving a silent gap.

Switch on Row you get
Receive all messages Everyone's Text — typed traffic between other stations
Hear radio traffic Radio audio & text — what the receivers heard, clip and transcription together

A message is in one row or the other, never both, so the two are worth opening separately. Speak text messages decides whether any of it is read aloud rather than what is followed, so it adds no row of its own.

A message addressed to you is always spoken when Speak text messages is on — whatever screen you are on, and with the app in your pocket and the screen locked. It used to be read only while its own conversation was open, which meant the person a message was for could be the only one who did not hear it.

There used to be a second 🔊 speaker icon beside the gear holding the sound switches, on the grounds that what reaches your phone is not a sound setting. All three live in the one sheet now, so there is nothing to hunt between.

Hearing the actual radio. When a channel sends its recordings, a radio entry carries a Play button. Tap it to hear what was really said — useful on the one line in fifty that came out garbled in the transcription. Recordings are fetched only when you tap them, never in advance, so following a net as text costs almost no cellular data. Hear radio traffic, under the ⚙ gear, turns this on.

When the app is in the background: an alert tone sounds and the message is then read aloud, followed by a notification you can tap — so you get the message itself without having to look, even with the screen locked.

If several messages arrived while you were away, they are waiting in their conversations when you return.

Origin Marker — Distance and Bearing (L,S)

Use this to measure distance and direction between two locations.

Right-click anywhere on the map to place a red Origin marker. On a laptop trackpad with no right button, Ctrl-click (Windows/Linux) or ⌘-click (Mac) does the same. (Use a long click on mobile devices.)

The Origin is cleared by Reset Map.

Reset Map (L,S)

Click Reset Map in the sidebar footer (or press the Escape key on large-screen devices) to:

On desktop, there is also a ↺ Reset Map button in the lower-right corner of the map (above the zoom controls) as an alternative to the sidebar button.

On mobile, the Reset Map button in the drawer footer and the circular reset icon (↺) that floats on the map both work the same way. Either one closes the drawer if it is open, recenters the map, and clears history dots and the Origin marker.

Save Map (L,S)

Click Save Map in the sidebar to save the current map position and zoom level as your personal default view. This default is stored in your browser and persists across sessions.

After saving, Reset Map will return to this saved position rather than the event's default.

Kiosk Mode (L)

Click Kiosk Mode in the sidebar to switch to a simplified display layout, which is designed for the publicly viewable display:

User Guide (L,S)

You got here, didn't you?

Clients (L)

Click Clients in the page footer to open a panel showing:

Signing In

The administrative tools — Admin page, Analyzer, NetBird Monitor, WiFi Manager, and Tickets — are accessible only to users with a personal account. Each account has a username, a password, and a set of permissions that determine which tools and actions are available.

To sign in, click Admin (or navigate directly to any protected page). You will be taken to the login page at marsaprs.org/auth/login.php. Enter your username and password and click Sign In. Your session lasts 24 hours; you will not be asked to sign in again unless you sign out or the session expires.

To sign out, click Sign out in the header of any admin page. Your session is immediately ended.

If you need an account or your password has been forgotten, contact the system administrator.

Admin Page (L,S)

Click the Admin button to go to the admin page. If you are not already signed in, you will be taken to the login page first and returned to the Admin page after signing in. Once signed in, you can edit the configuration for the currently default event. As mentioned earlier, all changes will be strictly local unless and until you use Save as Default Event... to publish them for others to see.

What you see on the Admin page depends on your account permissions. Users with full edit access (admin.edit) can modify and save all sections. Users with view-only access (admin.view) can see all event configuration, tracker information, aid stations, and iGates, but editing controls are hidden.

The header and footer each contain action buttons:

There are four additional buttons in the header of the Admin page:

Editing the Configuration (L,S)

The page is organized into sections matching the event's configuration. Edit any field and click Save as Default Event... when finished, or Update to apply local-only changes. Click Load to discard unsaved changes and reload from the server.

If any field contains an invalid value, the offending field is highlighted in red and a summary of errors is shown. The save is not performed until all errors are corrected.

Trackers

Add and remove the trackers to follow during an event.

Field Description
Callsign The tracker's APRS callsign (e.g., KO6JDL-2)
ID Short label shown on the map marker and in the sidebar (e.g., S2)
Name Full name shown in the sidebar (e.g., Rob)
Δ Read-only diagnostic: the shortest interval between any two consecutive beacons in the last 10 received, shown as M:SS. Displays — if fewer than 2 beacons have been received. Refreshes automatically every 30 seconds; the last refresh time is shown next to the Trackers heading.

Use the + button to add a tracker. Use the × button to remove one.

Tracker Style

Controls the appearance of all tracker markers on the map.

Field Options
Icon circle, square, diamond, triangle, star, cross, person
Label color Hex color for the ID/name label on the map

Marker size scales automatically with zoom level and cannot be set manually.

Default Section Visibility

Sets the initial visibility of each section when the event is loaded. Each section (Trackers, Courses, Aid Stations, iGates, Backgrounds) has a checkbox; uncheck any to hide those objects on the map by default. These defaults are saved with the event when you use Save as Default Event and are loaded by all browsers on first page load. Users can override the visibility locally during their session using the sidebar checkboxes.

Map Default View

Sets the default center and zoom level (range 0..19) used on page load and after Reset Map.

Field Description
Latitude Decimal degrees (positive = North)
Longitude Decimal degrees (positive = East)
Zoom Map zoom level (higher = more zoomed in)

Click Use Current Map to fill in the fields from the current map position (requires the map to have been opened in the same browser).

Changes to Map Default View saved with Update immediately become your personal default view on the map — the same as using the Save Map button on the main page.

Import and Export

The Event, Trackers, Aid Stations, iGates, and Courses section headers each have a ↓ (export) and ↑ (import) button.

Exporting — clicking ↓ shows a format menu:

Section Export formats
Event YAML only (entire configuration)
Trackers YAML, CSV (callsign, id, name)
Aid Stations YAML, CSV (name, lat, lon), GPX
iGates YAML, CSV (name, callsign, lat, lon), GPX
Courses YAML, CSV (name, file, color)

YAML filenames include the event name and today's date (e.g., Dipsea_2026_trackers_20260614.yaml). GPX files contain one waypoint per entry (callsign stored in the <cmt> field) and can be opened in GPS apps and mapping tools.

Importing — supported formats by section:

Section Import formats
Event YAML
Trackers YAML, CSV
Aid Stations YAML, CSV, GPX, KML, GeoJSON, JSON
iGates YAML, CSV, GPX, KML, GeoJSON, JSON
Courses YAML, CSV, GPX, KML, GeoJSON, JSON

CSV imports use the first row as column headers (case-insensitive). For iGates a callsign column is optional — rows without it import fine; aid stations have no callsign and any such column is ignored. GPX imports read the callsign from the <cmt> field if present; KML reads it from <description>; GeoJSON reads a callsign property. Waypoints are added as new entries. Courses location files (GPX/KML/GeoJSON/JSON) are uploaded to the server and a course entry is created automatically; CSV course files (name, file, color) add entries without uploading. Multiple files can be selected at once.

Importing always adds entries and never removes or overwrites existing ones. Duplicate entries (same name, callsign, or file path) are skipped automatically.

For .yaml files: if the file has no type marker, a confirmation dialog appears. If you try to import a file meant for a different section, the import is blocked.

Importing does not save to the server. Use Save as Default Event… afterward.

Backgrounds

Each background entry is a map tile layer. Provide a name, the tile URL template (using {z}, {x}, {y} placeholders), and the attribution HTML required by the tile provider.

⊞ Browse Providers — Click the grid icon (⊞) in the section header to open a tile provider browser showing thumbnail previews of all free Leaflet providers. Providers already added to this event are marked Added. Click any provider to insert it into the list with all fields pre-filled (name, URL, attribution, and maximum zoom).

Add Background — Click to pick from tile layers already used in other events (your background library). Fields are pre-filled from the saved layer.

An optional Max Zoom field caps how far in the user can zoom when this tile layer is active. This is pre-filled automatically when using the provider browser.

Courses

Lists the course overlays for this event. Each entry has:

Field Description
Name Label shown in the sidebar
File The overlay file (GPX, KML, or GeoJSON)
Color Color swatch — click to pick a color for the course line and markers
Style Four visual buttons showing the actual line pattern in the course color: solid, dashed, dotted, or dash-dot. Click one to select it.

To add courses, use Manage Location Files (see below).

Manage Course Files

Click the Manage Location Files button to open the course manager panel. This panel shows every course file across all events in a sortable table with columns for file name, event, and last modified date. Click any column header to sort; click again to reverse the order.

Adding a course to the current event

The rightmost column shows either a green ✓ (the file is already in the current event) or an Add button. Clicking Add adds the course to the current event's course list. The change is local until you save.

If the file comes from a different event, it is automatically copied into the current event's directory when you save.

Uploading a new file

Click Upload (or drag and drop a file onto the panel) to upload a new course file. Supported formats: .gpx, .kml, .geojson, .json.

The uploaded file is saved into the default event's directory and appears immediately in the table and the Courses section.

Aid Stations and iGates

Fixed locations shown on the map. Each entry has a name, an optional APRS callsign, a latitude, and a longitude. When a callsign is set it appears alongside the name in the map tooltip (on hover or after clicking the sidebar entry); it is not shown in the sidebar list itself. The callsign is also used for live activity detection: whenever a listed tracker's APRS packet is received through that station (the callsign appears in the packet's APRS-IS q-construct path), the station's sidebar entry blinks green for 5 seconds.

Smart coordinate paste — you can paste a combined latitude/longitude string (such as 37.7749, -122.4194 copied from Google Maps) into either the lat or lon field and both fields will be filled in automatically. Comma, semicolon, slash, and space separators are recognized, as are N/S/E/W direction letters.

Legend

HTML displayed in the lower-left corner of the map in kiosk mode. The field accepts any HTML — use tags like <b>, <br>, <a>, <img>, and inline styles to format the content.

Example:

<b>Race Day — June 14</b><br>Start: 7:00 AM at Mill Valley

Mobile Tracking

Controls whether participants can share their GPS position from their phone or tablet.

Field Description
Enable mobile location sharing When checked, the Share Location button appears in the mobile drawer for all visitors.
PIN code Participants must enter this code to join. Leave blank to allow anyone to share without a PIN.
Root callsign The base APRS callsign used to assign participant callsigns (e.g., K6DRK). Participants are assigned K6DRK-01, K6DRK-02, etc., in order of joining.
Messaging password When set, enables real-time messaging between web operators and mobile participants. The Messages (💬) button appears in the map toolbar for web users. Operators subscribe with this password and a display name of their choosing. Leave blank to disable messaging entirely.

Below the settings is the active participant list, which refreshes automatically. Each row shows the participant's name, assigned callsign, and the time of their last position update. Three actions are available per row:

Button Action
Rename Change the participant's displayed name on the map.
Hide Toggle a mobile tracker's map visibility. When on, the tracker is hidden from the map but still appears in the sidebar and tracker list, dimmed; default is off (visible). Hiding is about map clutter, not access: a hidden tracker keeps reporting, can still be messaged, and still shows how long ago it was heard from. The native app honours this too — the marker disappears there within a poll, and if the hidden tracker happened to be selected, its breadcrumb trail is cleared with it.
Remove End the session immediately and remove the participant from the list and the map.

Beacon Settings

Sets the upload interval and distance threshold for each activity mode. These values apply to both the native app and the web map.

Mode Default interval Default distance
Walk / Run 60 s 0.2 mi
Cycle 30 s 0.2 mi
Drive 15 s 0.2 mi
Stationary 2 min 1.0 mi

Use the Default button on each row to restore factory defaults. Changes take effect for active sessions within 5 seconds (the server pushes updated settings on the next map poll).

Mobile Tracking settings are saved to the server when you use Save or Save as Default Event.

Event Management

Save

Writes the current configuration directly to the event's file on the server without changing the active (default) event. Use this to update an event you are working on without disrupting what other users are currently seeing.

If no event has been saved yet (new unsaved event), Save opens the Save as Default Event dialog to name it first.

Save as Default Event

Saves the current (possibly unsaved) configuration as a named event and makes it the active event immediately. A dialog prompts for the event name (or to overwrite an existing one). After saving, the new configuration is live within about 5 seconds for all users who subsequently load the website.

If the name already exists, a warning is shown before the overwrite is confirmed. If the event is locked (🔒), the event password is required before the save proceeds.

Load

Opens a list of all saved events, sorted newest-first. From this dialog:

Locking an Event

Each event in the Save and Load dialogs has a lock icon (🔒). Clicking it prompts for the event password and toggles the lock state. A locked event (🔒, shown in red) cannot be overwritten by Save or Save as Default Event without entering the event password first. Use this to protect a production event from accidental edits while still allowing it to be loaded and previewed.

Analyzer

The Analyzer is a separate web page at marsaprs.org/analyzer/ for recording and reviewing APRS beacon data from an event. It is intended for use by net control operators. Access requires the event password.

Accessing the Analyzer

Navigate to https://marsaprs.org/analyzer/. You will be prompted for the event password. After entering the correct password, you are taken directly to the current event's analyzer map. Your session remains active for 24 hours.

Analyzer Map

The analyzer map looks similar to the main map and inherits the same map background and starting position that you last used on the main map. The map updates automatically at the configured refresh rate (see below).

Controls

Click Controls in the lower-left corner of the map to open the controls modal.

Recording

Field Description
Collect Data Check to start recording APRS beacons into the analyzer database; uncheck to stop. This control is only active for users with analyzer admin privileges; others see it as a read-only indicator.
Started The date and time data collection began for the current event.
Stopped The date and time data collection was most recently stopped (shown only when the daemon is not running).

Display

Checkbox Default Effect
Show Radio Beacons ✓ Show beacons from radio (APRS) trackers on the map
Show Cellular Beacons ✓ Show beacons from mobile (cellular) participants
Show Courses ✓ Overlay the event course routes on the map

Auto-Refresh — A slider sets how often the map automatically refreshes beacon data, from 30 seconds to 5 minutes. The default is 1 minute. This setting is per-browser and remembered across sessions.

Trackers and iGates

Two multi-select lists let you filter the displayed beacons by tracker and by receiving iGate. Select All (the default) to show beacons from all trackers or through all iGates. Select individual entries to narrow the view.

Time Range

Two sliders set the start and end of the time window displayed on the map. Drag the sliders to focus on a specific portion of the event.

Save Map Position

Click Save Map Position to save the current map center and zoom as your personal default for the Analyzer. This is stored per-browser and does not affect other users or the main map.

Erase All Data

Click Erase All Data… to permanently delete all recorded beacons for the current event. This requires analyzer admin privileges and two confirmation steps. This cannot be undone.

NetBird Status Monitor (L,S)

The NetBird Status Monitor is a separate tool for tracking the online/offline state of the network devices that support the APRS system — iGates, digipeaters, and similar equipment. It is independent of the tracker map.

*The Problem with NetBird: In order for NetBird to keep track of devices, those devices must frequently announce themselves to the NetBird servers. Unfortunately, this generates a great deal of internet traffic -- more than the traffic generated by our devices themselves. In some permanent iGate locations we use cellular hotspots to connect to the internet. Our hotspot provider gives us 1GB/month free of charge. The problem is that the NetBird traffic can easily surpass that limit.

We have therefore implemented a system that allows us to turn NetBird on and off remotely. Each device contacts the marsaprs.org server every five minutes to see if should turn its NetBird service on or off. A user with NetBird admin privileges can use the NetBird Admin page to enable or disable any remote device. The device will act on any changes at its next five-minute interval. Note that we generally keep NetBird off for any permanently located iGate that uses a cellular hotspot. This isn't necessary for temporary or "guerrilla" iGates since they're usually on for less than 24 hours per event.

Accessing the Monitor

There are two pages, both requiring a user account:

Page URL Required permission
Status /netbird/ NetBird view
Admin /netbird/admin.php NetBird admin

All pages share the same sign-in. If you are not already signed in, you will be taken to the login page and returned automatically after signing in. Users with only NetBird view access see the status page in read-only mode — poll/refresh sliders and the Admin button are not shown.

Status Page

The status page polls the server automatically and updates in real time. Two sliders in the header control timing:

Users with NetBird admin privileges see two sliders in the header:

Progress bars next to each slider show how far through the current interval you are.

The page stops polling after 20 minutes of inactivity and shows a Polling Paused overlay. Click Resume to restart. (View-only users see the current state at page load only; no live updates.)

Summary Bar

Five boxes appear at the top of the page showing a count for each state:

Box Color Meaning
Total Black Sum of all four state boxes
Online Green Devices actively responding to polls via NetBird
Pending Blue Devices recently enabled or disabled; waiting for the change to take effect
Offline Red Devices enabled but not responding after the pending period has elapsed
Disabled Gray Devices excluded from polling (NetBird is off and no pending transition)

Device Table

Each row shows one monitored device:

Column Description
Device Name and hostname
IP Address The NetBird IP address being polled
Group Logical grouping (e.g., "iGate", "Digipeater")
Status Current state badge
Last Seen How long ago the device last responded

Status Meanings

Status Badge color What it means
Online Green The device responded to the most recent NetBird poll
Pending Blue The device was recently enabled or disabled; the system is waiting to confirm the change
Offline Red The device is enabled but has not responded after the pending period has fully elapsed
Disabled Gray The device's NetBird has been switched off and the transition is complete

Pending applies to both enabling and disabling a device, because NetBird changes take effect on 5-minute clock boundaries (0:00, 0:05, 0:10, …), not immediately:

Device Admin Page

The admin page (/netbird/admin.php) allows operators to manage the device list and control which devices are polled.

Enabling and Disabling Devices

Each device row has an On/Off toggle switch in the first column. Flipping the switch takes effect immediately on the server, but the device itself acts on the change at its next 5-minute clock boundary. Both the admin and status pages reflect the change instantly — no need to wait for the next automatic poll.

In the worst case (e.g., a change made just after a 5-minute boundary), the transition can take just under 5 minutes to complete.

Adding, Editing, and Deleting Devices

Use the buttons at the bottom of the table to manage the device list:

Row Buttons

Each device row has up to four action buttons:

Button Condition Action
ssh Online + enabled Opens a browser-based SSH terminal
Web Online + enabled Opens the device's web interface in a new tab (http://<ip>)
Edit Always Opens an inline form to edit device fields
Del Always Deletes the device after confirmation

WiFi Manager

We try to keep track of all the SSIDs and passwords for all the WiFi access points we use. They're maintained in an ever-growing file, which is organized in order or priority. When one of our devices boots, it starts at the top of the list and works its way down until it finds an SSID to which it can connect. The WiFi manager is used to edit and re-order this list.

It's important to keep at least one device such as a mobile phone's hotspot at the top of the list. These are "recovery hotspots". The idea is that we can always get a device to connect to a recovery hotspot in case we need to perform some manual maintenance.

The WiFi Manager at marsaprs.org/wifi/ manages the shared list of WiFi credentials used by all MARS Pi devices — iGates, display Pis, and the server. Full editing requires a user account with WiFi admin privileges. Users with NetBird view privileges can open the page in read-only mode (no add, edit, delete, or reorder).

Managing Credentials

The manager lists all configured SSIDs. Use it to add new WiFi networks or remove ones that are no longer needed.

Applying Changes

Changes are saved automatically to wifi.yaml whenever you commit an edit or reorder an entry — no manual save step is needed. iGates and display Pis pick up the new credentials nightly at 4 am; to apply immediately on a field device, SSH in and run /home/pi/auto-update.sh.

Adding a New SSID in the Field

It sometimes happens that we show up for an event for which we don't know the WiFi credentials in advance. To solve this, first turn on a recovery hotspot such as a mobile phone's personal hotspot. (This is why we keep them at the top of the list.) Next, connect a laptop to the same SSID. You will need to know the IP address of the device you're trying to configure. Most of our devices will display their IP address when they boot. Then login into the device from the laptop and run this command on the device:

/home/pi/add-wifi.php

You will be asked for the Name (pick something like "Stinson Community Center"), the SSID, and the password (8–63 characters). The script will append the hotspot to the end of the list (i.e., at the lowest priority). Remember to turn off the recovery hotspot so the device won't reconnect to it when rebooted. Then reboot the device.

Note that the appended hotspot is temporary. It will be deleted when a new list is downloaded from the server.

Transcriber Channels

A Transcriber is a small computer with a radio receiver that listens to a voice frequency and writes down what it hears. Each transmission appears in the Event Log by itself, attributed to the frequency it was heard on:

Net Control  → Log
  0930 net opened

146.520  → Log
  "aid three we have a rider down"

You do not have to do anything for this to happen. The page at marsaprs.org/transcriber/ is where the frequencies are set up, and most of the time it is left alone.

Setting up a channel

One receiver, one frequency. The radio is a conventional receiver tuned by hand, and its own squelch decides what gets recorded — so there is no frequency to type, no dongle serial to match and no squelch to set. The page shows the current setup rather than a list of saved ones.

Field What it is
Status Whether the receiver is actually running. Green means it reported in within the last five minutes. Red means it is not running, which is a different thing from a quiet band and used to be indistinguishable from one — a channel that cannot start writes exactly as many entries as a silent frequency.
Event These settings belong to the active event. Switching events switches all of them.
Identity The name of the running service and the author of every log entry. Fixed when the channel is created; it looks like a hostname with a frequency on the end because that is what it once was.
Heard as What the log shows as the author. Make it something you will recognize mid-event. Changing it renames the channel's earlier entries too: it is the same radio, and a log showing one receiver under two names is worse than one that catches up.
Accuracy Fast keeps up with a busy net in real time. Careful is more accurate and about three times slower.
Audio Send the actual recording with each entry, so anyone following on a phone can tap Play and hear what was really said. Off by default — it costs the receiver a little upload per transmission, and is only worth turning on for a channel somebody is actually listening to on a phone. Recordings are kept for a few hours, then removed.
On Turn a channel off to stop it logging immediately, without deleting its setup.

Setting the radio's volume is the one thing still done by hand — see Audio level on the same page, and the Admin Guide for how to read the meter.

Nothing is written until you press Save. After that the page waits, counting down, while each receiver comes and collects — they check once a minute, so it usually lands in well under that. When every receiver has it you get Update applied; if one never answers you are told which, and the change stays saved until it comes back.

Update devices is a different thing and you will rarely need it: it asks the receivers to fetch new software, rather than waiting for the nightly update. Settings do not need it.

If the page has been open a while and somebody else has changed something, Save is refused with a note asking you to reload. It will not quietly overwrite work you cannot see.

Event vocabulary

Radio voice is hard to transcribe, and the words it gets wrong are the ones a log most needs right — callsigns, aid stations, the names of places. Telling it what to expect fixes most of that.

It learns those from the event's radio assignment sheet, the Google Doc you already write for every event. Paste the sheet's address into the box on the transcriber page and press Save, then Read sheet now.

Save before you read. The sheet is fetched from the address that has been saved, not the one showing in the box. If you press Read sheet now with an unsaved address it will read the previous sheet and tell you what was in that one, which looks exactly like the new sheet being wrong.

Some of it is picked up on its own. Callsigns are recognizable by their shape, so every one in the document is found without anyone listing them — 35 of them, on a recent Dipsea sheet. Tactical calls like Sweep 1, Hiker 3 and Net Control are found the same way.

Place names are not, and never will be. Windy Gap, Cardiac, Moors and Steep Ravine are ordinary words in an ordinary order, and anything that could pick them out of the document would drag half the prose along with it. So they are listed explicitly, in a section at the end of the sheet:

Transcriber Vocabulary
Windy Gap
Cardiac
Muir Woods
Sequoia Valley Road
Steep Ravine = Bridge
Insult Hill = White Gate

A heading with the word Vocabulary in it, then one name per line, ending at the first blank line. Bullets are fine.

A line with an = in it is a correction: the left side is what the transcription keeps producing, the right side is what it should say. Steep Ravine = Bridge means "when you hear Steep Ravine, write Bridge" — useful when the net calls a place something other than its name on the map, and for a mishearing you have actually watched happen.

Check that it found the section. Under the sheet address the page says either Vocabulary section: found, 31 terms and 4 corrections or, in amber, not found. If it says not found and you believe it should not, the heading has probably been renamed, or the edit is still a suggestion in the document rather than accepted text — suggestions look identical on screen and are invisible to anything reading the document.

The box below is for the middle of an event, when Cardiac is coming out as Cardiff and you would rather not edit a shared document with twenty people in it. Same format, one per line, and it adds to whatever the sheet gave rather than replacing it.

Two things worth knowing when you write the list. A single common word — Runner, Bib, Cardiac — will be capitalized wherever it appears, so "a cardiac arrest on the trail" becomes "a Cardiac arrest". Harmless, but it is why longer names behave better. And the spelling in your sheet is the spelling in the log: write FInish and that is what the entries will say.

The standing list is the third place words come from, at the bottom of the page under Standing vocabulary. It is one list shared by every event, for the words that do not change from one to the next: net and radio terms, and the place names of the region all of these events happen in. Press Edit standing list to open it. Anything already there is one less thing to retype into a new sheet, and it comes with a starting list so you can see what belongs in it.

The rule for what to put there is the same one as above, only it matters more, because a mistake here is a mistake on every event rather than on one. Long and distinctive names are nearly free: nothing else on the air sounds like Sequoia Valley Road, so it either matches or it does not. A single everyday word costs you everywhere — that is why Cardiac is deliberately not in the standing list even though it is a real aid station. Put a word like that on the one sheet that needs it.

Where two lists disagree, the more specific one wins. The box beats the sheet, and the sheet beats the standing list. So a standing entry can never get in the way of what today's sheet says, and a correction you type into the box mid-event overrules both.

If you go over the limit you will be told. There is a ceiling of 1000 terms across all three lists together, which is far more than anyone has typed, and if something is dropped the page says in red how many and which list they came from. It will not quietly keep the first thousand and say nothing.

Tokens

Each row shows whether a token is set. Tokens are never displayed after they are created, so New… issues a fresh one and shows it once — copy it then.

There are two kinds, and they do different jobs. A config token only lets a receiver collect its settings, and goes in a file on that machine. A log token only lets a channel write to the log. Neither can be used to read messages, so a receiver left unattended at an aid station is not a way into the net's traffic.

Issuing a new token stops the old one working straight away.

What to expect from it

It will get things wrong. Radio voice is compressed and noisy, and callsigns and phonetics are exactly what a general-purpose transcriber is worst at — expect the sense of a message to survive and names to come out mangled. It is a record of what was said, not a transcript you would read into evidence.

It is deliberately cautious about what it writes down. Very short transmissions are ignored, and so are the stock phrases these systems produce when fed static — an empty log is more useful than one filling with things nobody said. A frequency with an open or stuck carrier is skipped rather than transcribed.

Nothing is sent to anyone. Entries go into the log and no further: no tracker receives them, no phone or watch chimes.

Cloudflare Tunnel

marsaprs.org is published to the internet via a Cloudflare Tunnel — a lightweight outbound connector (cloudflared) that runs on the server Pi and maintains a persistent connection to Cloudflare's global network. This means:

Setup

The tunnel is configured once during initial server setup via configure.sh, which prompts for a token from the Cloudflare Zero Trust dashboard (Networks → Tunnels → Configure → Install and run connector). After that it runs automatically as a systemd service and reconnects on reboot or network changes without any manual intervention.

Checking tunnel status

sudo systemctl status cloudflared

If the tunnel is down, the site will be unreachable even though Apache is running normally on the Pi. Restarting the service usually resolves transient connectivity issues:

sudo systemctl restart cloudflared

Troubleshooting

Is my iGate working?

Quick check — external: Go to aprs.fi and search for the iGate's callsign (e.g. K6DRK-6). If it shows a packet received in the last few minutes, the iGate is reaching the APRS network.

If the iGate is not appearing on aprs.fi:

  1. Check the NetBird Status page. On the MARS APRS map marsaprs.org click on Admin→NetBird. If the iGate is listed, you should see Online next to the iGate's ID. If the iGate isn't on the list, you can add it via Admin→NetBird→Admin using the iGate's NetBird address. If the iGate is listed, but shows as Disabled, go to Admin→NetBird→Admin and turn it on. Nothing will happen until 35 seconds after the next five-minute interval (i.e., 5, 10, 15, etc., minutes past the hour). If the iGate can't be reached, its status will change to Offline.

  2. Check internet connectivity. The iGate must have internet access to forward packets to APRS-IS. If the Admin→NetBird page doesn't show Online after the above steps, have the operator check whether the cellular hotspot (if one is being used) is on and has a cellular connection.

  3. Reboot the iGate. Regardless of whether the iGate is connected via a cellular hotspot or a local WiFi access point, have the operator reboot the iGate and check for an IP address and SSID on the diagnostic display, which appears 1-2 minutes after a reboot and stays on for about 15 seconds. If the iGate bypasses the diagnostic screen, the iGate has no internet connection.

  4. Verify the SDR is recognized. If the SDR isn't connected or has malfunctioned, the iGate will display No SDR Found and will wait until one is found or reboot. Tell the operator to check the USB connection to the SDR.

Are you receiving my tracker?

Quick check: Open marsaprs.org and find the callsign (or assigned ID/name) in the Trackers list.

See where your packets were received: Click the tracker's name in the tracker list (or tap it on mobile) to show its breadcrumb history — the last 10 beacon positions as dots on the map. Hover (desktop) or tap (mobile) any dot to see the timestamp and the APRS path: which iGates and digipeaters the beacons traveled through before reaching the internet.

If the tracker is not appearing or is stuck on red (>5 minutes since last beacon received):

  1. Is it in a good location? Assuming the tracker has been properly configured, it's likely not close enough to an iGate or digipeater to be received.

  2. Check aprs.fi. Go to aprs.fi and search for the tracker's callsign. If packets appear there but not on the event map, the callsign in the event configuration may not match. If they don't appear on aprs.fi either, the issue is RF or transmitter-side.

  3. Check the tracker's configuration:

    • Confirm the transmitter is on 144.390 MHz.

    • Check that the tracker's GPS is on.

    • Check that the tracker is receiving latitude/longitude from the GPS.

    • Check that the tracker's APRS function is using GPS for location.

    • Check the tracker's beaconing period. Ideally, use smart beaconing which will adjust the beaconing period based on travel speed, etc. If that's not available, use 30 seconds for a vehicle, 60 seconds for a bicycle or 90 seconds for a hiker/runner. 60 seconds is a good compromise for all uses.

    • Check the tracker's callsign such as MARS-3.

How do I add a new WiFi hotspot in the field?

The iGates and display Pis download a shared WiFi credential list from the server every night at 4:00 AM. There are two ways to add a new hotspot:

Permanent — via the web admin (preferred)

  1. Log in to the WiFi Manager at marsaprs.org/wifi/ (requires a user account with WiFi admin privileges).
  2. Enter the network Name (a label for your records), SSID, and password.
  3. Click Add. The new network is saved immediately and will be distributed to all field devices at the next nightly update (4:00 AM).

Networks at the top of the list have higher priority. Drag to reorder if needed.

N.B.: Be careful when reordering the list. We purposely keep cellphone hotspots at or near the top so they can be used as recovery hotspots, superseding other devices farther down in the list.

Temporary — directly on a field device

Use this when you are on-site and need a device to connect to a new hotspot before the next nightly sync.

  1. Connect your laptop to the device via a recovery hotspot (such as the personal-hotspot entry at the top of the WiFi list) or any other hotspot on the list.
  2. Get the device's IP address. (The NetControl and BigTV devices show their IP address when they reboot.)
  3. SSH to the device: ssh pi@<device-ip>
  4. Run: /home/pi/add-wifi.php
  5. Enter the network name, SSID, and password when prompted.
  6. The device will connect immediately.
  7. Turn off the recovery hotspot once the device has connected to the new network.

N.B.: Hotspots added this way are temporary. At 4:00 AM the device will re-download the master WiFi list from the server and the locally added entry will be removed unless you also added it via the web admin (step above).

How do I determine how frequently a tracker is beaconing?

Quickest method — Admin page

Log in to the Map Admin page at marsaprs.org/admin/ and look at the Trackers table. The Δ column shows the shortest observed interval between any two consecutive beacons in the last 10 received, in M:SS format. For example, 4:05 means the tracker was heard twice within 4 minutes and 5 seconds — a reliable indicator of the configured beacon rate. The table auto-refreshes every 30 seconds.

Δ shows — if fewer than two beacons have been received yet.

On the map — breadcrumb timestamps

Click the tracker name in the sidebar (or tap on mobile) to show breadcrumb history. Hover (desktop) or tap (mobile) any dot to see the exact time that beacon was received. Compare the times on two adjacent dots to estimate the interval.

External reference — aprs.fi

Go to aprs.fi and search the tracker's callsign. The packet log shows timestamps for every packet that reached APRS-IS, giving a complete view of the beacon cadence independent of the event map.