APRS is a multi-faceted system used primarily within Amateur Radio for tracking many different types of things. APRS is used for tracking Weather, for tracking moving cars, boats, weather balloons, and many other things. It can also be used as Graphics Information System for many different aspects of Amateur Radio.
The original version of APRS was developed by Bob Bruninga, WB4APR, to run under DOS and was introduced at the 1992 ARRL Computer Networking Conferences. MacAPRS was released at the Dayton Hamvention in 1994.
The Macintosh version is written entirely in C and will port easily to Windows. Keith and Bob have worked hard at keeping the two versions compatible and by using all of the C code already developed for the Macintosh version, it will ensure complete compatibility on the Windows version. In addition, the two versions will use the exact same map file format so all of the wonderful maps that the Mac users have will be immediately usable by the Windows version.
When asked about future plans, Mark said, "When we finish with the Windows version, we are planning on doing an X-Windows version as well."
To keep up to date on the status of MacAPRS™ for Windows, watch this Web Page (http://aprs.rutgers.edu/APRS/index.htm)
All of the current versions of APRS are available on
There is a discussion group about APRS™ on the TAPR list server. To subscribe to this mailing list, send e-mail to listserv@tapr.org with the following command in the message text:
subscribe aprssig {your name}
PC APRS Bob Bruninga, WB4APR bruninga@greatlakes.nadn.navy.mil