so ive been trying to get my APRS setup working for about two weeks now and im just not seeing my beacon show up on aprs.fi or getting heard by any digipeaters in my area. running a TM-D710G into a decent vertical on the roof, set to 144.390, 1200 baud AFSK, everything looks right to me on the radio side. the radio shows it's transmitting — the TX light comes on every few minutes — but nothing ever shows up on the map.

i borrowed a handheld and stood outside and i can hear other peoples packets coming through fine so i know 144.390 is active around here. checked the path and im using WIDE1-1,WIDE2-1 which i thought was pretty standard. volume level on the TNC side seems okay but honestly i have no idea what i'm doing when it comes to audio levels and maybe thats the whole problem. anyone been through this before

audio level is almost certainly your issue, that's the first thing to check with any TNC setup. the D710 has its own internal TNC so if youre using that it should be fine but if you've got an external one in the chain somewhere the deviation can be way off and nobody will decode you even though it sounds fine to your ears. what i'd do is grab a software decoder like Direwolf on a laptop, plug in a cheap USB audio dongle with an antenna or just hold it next to your radio, and see if it can decode your own packets. if Direwolf can't decode em then neither can the digipeaters. also double check that SQL is open when you're transmitting — the D710 can be weird about that sometimes depending on how it's configured.

yeah what he said about audio levels. also — and this is a dumb one but worth checking — make sure you dont have the wrong callsign or SSID set. ive seen people fat-finger an extra character and then wonder why nothing shows up. on aprs.fi you can search for a partial call too which helps. also the path thing, WIDE1-1,WIDE2-1 is correct but some areas are real sparse for digis and you might just not have coverage. try looking at aprs.fi and zooming into your area to see where the nearest digi actually is, sometimes they're further than you think and your 5w signal just doesnt make it.