Courtesy of W9IF
WAPaprs is an application to display APRS information on a cell phone or similar wireless device such as a PDA (Personal Digital Assitant). It was written to provide useful information within the limitations of a wireless handheld device (i.e., size, memory, color). WAPaprs can be accessed in many ways as shown in the table below. However, most users will use one of the URLs in RED below. WAPaprs can be accessed with or without a callsign. Due to the relative difficulty to input text using a cell phone keypad, the preferred method for using WAPaprs is to permanently bookmark stations of interest. The WML (Wireless Markup Language) was used to create WAPaprs. For this reason, WAPaprs pages cannot be displayed directly on a desktop web browser such as Internet Explorer or Netscape. Desktop browsers support HTML not WML however, some web sites can accept WML and convert to HTML. WAPaprs menu options are described below.
| Label | URL | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Main | http://w9if.net/cgi-bin/wapaprs/main http://w9if.net/cgi-bin/wapaprs/main?w9if |
This is all you should need. From here you can navigate to all other menu options. The CGI interfaces are provided below for completeness. |
| Position | http://w9if.net/cgi-bin/wapaprs/posit?w9if | This display gives the last known position of the station including the latitude, longitude, heading, course, and speed. |
| Cities (US) | http://w9if.net/cgi-bin/wapaprs/cities?w9if | Displays the names of nearby populated areas. The areas are not necessarily a city. They may be a suburb or housing subdivision. The database presently supports US location only. |
| Landmarks (US) | http://w9if.net/cgi-bin/wapaprs/lmarks?w9if | Displays nearby landmarks. Examples of landmarks are: valley, stream, church, or school. The database presently supports US location only. |
| Weather | http://w9if.net/cgi-bin/wapaprs/wx?w9if | If the callsign provided is a weather station, weather conditions such as temperature, humidity, wind speed, wind direction, rain levels, and pressure are provided. |
| Maps (B&W) | http://w9if.net/cgi-bin/wapaprs/mapbw?w9if | This page displays black and white (monochrome) maps. |
| Maps (Color) | http://w9if.net/cgi-bin/wapaprs/mapcolor?w9if | If you are lucky enough to have a cell phone that supports color, this page is for you. |
| New Call | http://w9if.net/cgi-bin/wapaprs/newcall | Use this page to input a new callsign. |
GETTING STARTED: If you have a cellular phone that supports WAP (Wireless Application Protocol) and signed up for web access with your cellular provider, then you have everything you need. As an example, I purchased a Kyocera model 3035 cellular phone that supports WAP. It was $20, so you do not need a fancy and expensive device. I signed on with Verizon as my provider and pay $7 extra per month for their Mobile Web feature. Simple!