RadioChat APRS 1.0.1

Added

• Radio selection for the Bluetooth TNC. More → Links & network → Bluetooth now has a
  radio picker, and scanning filters for the model you chose.
• BTECH UV-PRO support. The UV-PRO and its siblings (Vero VR-N76,
  RadioOddity GA-5WB) do not speak KISS over BLE; they use the Benshi protocol, where
  AX.25 frames travel as fragmented "TNC data" messages over an indication
  characteristic. UUIDs, command identifiers and framing all follow the
  benlink reference. Receiving and transmitting
  are both confirmed on hardware.
• The app now registers for radio events on connect. These radios report nothing until
  asked: registering HT_STATUS_CHANGED is what also enables DATA_RXD, the event that
  carries received frames. Without it the link comes up and no packet ever arrives.
• Transmitting over Bluetooth, for radios that can. Chat messages, ACKs and GPS
  beacons now go out through the radio's BLE TNC when the connected model supports it.
  The UV-PRO does; the RT-950 Pro is marked receive-only, because it accepts the write
  and never keys up — claiming otherwise would report messages as sent that never
  reached the air. Receive-only is still enough to run the app as an iGate, which never
  transmits on RF.
• ACKs now reply over the same link the message arrived on whenever that link can
  transmit, instead of falling back to the internet for a station that may not be there.
• Resend for unconfirmed messages. Long-pressing an outgoing message that has not
  been acknowledged offers Send again. The APRS message id is reused, so an ACK still
  matches the original bubble and a correspondent who already received it re-ACKs the
  duplicate rather than showing the text twice. Retries are counted and shown as ↻n.

Changed

• The BLE layer was split into a GATT state machine that knows nothing about any radio
  and a per-radio BleRadioProfile holding the attributes and the framing. Adding a model
  is now a new profile rather than a change to shared code.
• The Radtel RT-950 Pro path is unchanged: same UUIDs, same FF31 preference, same KISS
  framing, same MTU chunking. Unit tests now pin those down so a future radio cannot
  silently alter them.
• Switching radios drops any live BLE link, since the two protocols are not interchangeable.
• Unit tests return default values for unmocked Android stubs, so a stray Log call in
  code under test no longer fails an otherwise valid test.

Install

Download radiochat-aprs-1.0.1.apk below and allow installing from an unknown source.

Verify the download before installing:

sha256sum -c radiochat-aprs-1.0.1.apk.sha256

Requires Android 12 (API 31) or newer, and a valid amateur radio licence to transmit.

RadioChat APRS 1.0.0

First public release.

Added

• Chat — APRS text messaging (:CALLSIGN :text{id) with WhatsApp-style ACK ticks,
  persisted history, unread badges and swipe-to-delete.
• Map — live stations on OpenStreetMap (osmdroid) with Hessu APRS symbols, own position
  and a track of transmitted beacons.
• Logs — live packet monitor for RF and Internet traffic, with per-station symbols,
  filters and an optional RAW view.
• Three transports — BLE KISS (Radtel RT-950 Pro), KISS TCP (DireWolf or any KISS TNC)
  and APRS-IS, usable simultaneously.
• GPS beacon — periodic position beaconing over APRS-IS and/or KISS TCP, running in a
  location foreground service so it survives the screen going off.
• iGate — RF → APRS-IS forwarding with anti-loop, dedupe and rate limiting.
• Notifications — incoming messages, ACK/REJ and dropped links, per-channel.
• SSID-aware throughout: HI3LAG-7 is not HI3LAG-3.

Project

• Released as free software under GPL-3.0-or-later. The app name and icon are reserved;
  see the README.
• The user interface, source comments and log messages are in English.
• Application id com.aprs.radiochat. The package deliberately carries no third-party
  trademark; the app supports the Radtel RT-950 Pro and says so in its documentation.
• Signed release APKs are built automatically from a git tag, and published here with a
  SHA-256 checksum you can verify before installing.

Install

Download radiochat-aprs-1.0.0.apk below and allow installing from an unknown source.

Verify the download before installing:

sha256sum -c radiochat-aprs-1.0.0.apk.sha256

Requires Android 12 (API 31) or newer, and a valid amateur radio licence to transmit.