This week, we visit a Web site devoted to a British APRS application that is sweeping the Amateur Radio world.

UI-View is a very popular Windows-based Automatic Position Reporting System (APRS) application. The APRS allows hams to link radios with GPS units using the unconnected packet mode, displaying position and other data on a computer-generated map. Roger Barker, G4IDE, is the man responsible for this version of APRS software, which has swept Europe and is finding favor in the rest of the APRS world.

The UI-View Web Site will introduce you to a different view of APRS.

Roger's software has a lot going for it. A variety of map formats may be used with it, add-on applications are available for it, and it has great technical support through its Yahoo Group and its Web site, The UI-View Web Site.

Also, UI-View may be used with TNCs in the terminal mode, but it differs from most other APRS applications in that it also supports TNCs in the KISS mode, AGWPE host mode, and BPQ host mode. UI-View32 (the 32-bit version of the software) also supports WA8DED/TF host mode, and the variant of it used in the SCS PTC-II and PTC-IIe PACTOR controllers. Host mode support means that UI-View can be used with a wide range of packet hardware and allows you to use as many as 16 RF ports. The application also includes a full-featured internal "intelligent" digipeater and full support for connecting to APRS servers on the Internet.

The UI-View Web site provides everything you need to know to get started, including links for downloading the software, maps, add-ons, plug-ins and technical support. There are also links to other Web sites where you can obtain more maps, more tools and more!

Until next time, keep on surfin'.

Editor's note: Stan Horzepa, WA1LOU, resides in downtown Wolcott, Connecticut, and has been a QST writer for over 25 years. Since getting his ticket in 1969, Stan has sampled nearly every entrée in the Amateur Radio menu (including a stint as Connecticut Section Manager), but he keeps coming back to his favorite preoccupations: VHF and packet radio. As a result, he runs a 2-meter APRS digipeater and weather station (WA1LOU-15) from his mountaintop location in central Connecticut. Stan, a long time advocate of using computers with Amateur Radio, wrote programs to dupe contests and calculate antenna bearings way back in 1978. Today, he is on the board of directors of Tucson Amateur Packet Radio (TAPR) and uses his Mac to surf the Internet, in search of that perfect ham radio Web page. To contact Horzepa, send e-mail to wa1lou@arrl.net.

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