Vero VR-N7500 iOS APRS Messaging Support – Android Beta needs testers!

Today the iOS BS HT app for the Vero Telecom VR-N7500 and VR-N75 radio has been released by the software developers on the Apple Store with all the work we’ve been doing over the last month to get APRS Messaging working, and a few other fixes.

It seems after my review of the radio and reaching out to the manufacturer I was able to work with the software developer to help them improve and test the application. My understanding is that they have a number of new products in development that we’ll see coming on soon, and this work they’re doing is going to further enhance their product line into the future.

A big thank-you to the team at Vero Telecom for taking on my feedback and helping to start work through some of the issues that if fixed, will make this radio, absolutely a Yaesu-killer.

Fixes:

Object reports now show on the map correctly
Long tap on the channel in the top left hand corner brings up a full screen channel option
Data received from an IGate with nested information now shows correctly.
APRS Path now configured through “General Settings”
APRS Channel now configured through “General Settings”
APRS Positioning/Messaging channel now monitored in the background if one is configured. 
APRS Channel works in “Single Ch” and “Double Ch” mode.
APRS Messages and Positions now send with the path configured in the “General Settings”
APRS Messages will now be “acked” on the channel that they came in on
Speeds up firmware updates from iOS
Digipeating now transmits via the APRS Channel, if one is selected
Includes an option for the radio to turn on in pairing mode

Most importantly, the “BSS Settings” do not affect the APRS positioning or messaging functionality of the radio anymore, and the “Time To Live” and “Maximum Forwarding Times” sections of the APRS config – which were very ambiguous – are now gone. There is still some duplication of on-air APRS positioning information settings and “Internet” positioning information settings (centred around the message that is appended to the two reports) but I don’t see that as a major issue – at least not for now.

Note:
Due to the way the channel monitoring works in “Double Ch” mode there is a possibility of on-air packets being missed. Because the radio only has one receiver, effectively what happens in “Double Ch” mode WITH an APRS channel set, the radio is rapidly scanning three channels in the background. If it misses the preamble/start of an APRS data frame, the frame won’t be received. Unfortunately this is a trade off between multiple goals being the consistency of messaging and monitoring multiple channels.

I’ve found the best consistency when an APRS channel is configured to be to use “Single Ch” mode where the scanning between the user channel and the APRS channel seems to be fast enough that the radio doesn’t miss any frames, but if you want to monitor two voice frequencies and APRS then you’ll have to use “Double Ch” mode. In this mode the radio is scanning three channels and I’ve found that in some instances the radio may miss some packets on APRS.

How do I use the new app?

Right now. If you’re a N75 user, you’ll have to wait. The developer hasn’t released the firmware update for these features for the N75 – yet, but it is on it’s way. For users of the N7500, continue reading.

In order to utilise this update you need to upgrade to the current BETA version of the firmware. Once you update the app you can do this by going into “General Settings” -> “Firmware Version” -> Tap on “Is up to date” 5 times rapidly -> Click on “Start Update”.

The first update WILL take a long time if upgrading from iOS. It took nearly 1.5 hours on my phone to do the upgrade. One of the features released in this is a faster upgrade process for iOS users. A subsequent upgrade only took 10 minutes. The app developer assures me once the upgrade is started the app can run with the screen off on the phone, but I kept my phone awake for the duration – just in case.

The developer has done an incredible job of working on these issues with me testing them to get this one over the line.

Android Users:

The changes are prepared for Android and are available on Beta through the Google Play store, however I don’t have an Android device so can android users PLEASE TEST this functionality as well and report any bugs back to the app developer.

Photos:

What’s Next?

These aren’t all the fixes I mentioned in my last post, however it’s a massive step in the right direction, and most importantly, I can now use the radio for the reason I bought it.

There are still a bunch of things that need to be looked into. Digipeating is still doing some strange things and SmartBeaconing would be awesome to have, but so far this is a huge step in the right direction in a very short period of time. I really look forward to this being out in the wild, and working with the software developers to help make this radio really be the best that it can be.