so ive been messing with APRS for a few weeks now and I cannot for the life of me get my position to show up on aprs.fi. I'm running a TM-D710G which I know has the built in TNC, set to 1200 baud, 144.390, and I can hear packets decoding on the screen just fine - other stations are showing up in the station list so I know its receiving. But my own callsign never appears on the map.

I've double checked the path and I'm using WIDE1-1,WIDE2-1 which should be fine for suburban area right? SSID is set to -9. The internal GPS is locked, I can see coordinates on the display. Beacon rate is set to smart beaconing with the defaults. Honestly not sure what else to check at this point. Been transmitting for like an hour with nothing. Do I need to verify my callsign somewhere or register it or something before it shows up?

first thing id check is whether your actually transmitting at all - pull up a SDR or ask someone nearby to listen on.390 while you trigger a manual beacon. the D710 can sometimes get into a state where the TNC thinks its keying but nothing actually goes out. also make sure PTT is actually connected if you're running it through a separate radio, though if you're using the built in stuff that shouldnt be an issue.

the other thing, and this caught me for like two weeks - check that your symbol is set correctly and that the comment field doesnt have any weird characters in it. ive seen malformed packets that decode locally but get dropped by igates. you dont need to register anything, aprs.fi just picks you up automatically once a digipeater or igate hears you. if you have any igates within range they should be pushing it to the internet within seconds of a good packet.

Check that the GPS position format is set to DDMM.MM and not decimal degrees - the D710 should handle that automatically but ive seen edge cases. Also worth checking if there's actually an igate near you that's connected to the APRS-IS network, not just a digipeater. You can look on aprs.fi and filter for igates in your area. A digi will repeat your packet over RF but if there's no igate to hear it and push it upstream you'll never see it online even if youre being digipeated perfectly fine.