so i finally got my TM-D710G set up with APRS and its been running for about two weeks now. been using it in the car mostly but i also left it on at home connected to a magmount on the roof just to see how it works as a fill-in digi or whatever. the problem is i think i had the smart beaconing settings messed up and it was transmitting like every 30 seconds even when i wasnt moving at all. just sitting in the driveway basically spamming 144.390.

i checked aprs.fi and yeah my station was showing up with timestamps like every 30 seconds, sometimes faster. i know thats way too aggressive for a stationary station. ive since turned the rate way down but i guess my question is what are people actually running for beacon intervals when parked or at home? i dont want to disappear from the map entirely but also dont want to be that guy clogging up the channel. running a whip on the car and a j-pole at the house if that matters, no dedicated digi just the radio doing its thing.

yeah 30 seconds stationary is pretty bad, the general rule of thumb most people follow is something like 10 minutes when you're not moving. smart beaconing on the D710 is actually pretty decent once you dial it in right, the key parameters are the low speed threshold and the time settings. basically you want it to slow way down when your speed drops below like 5mph. for a home station a lot of folks just set a fixed beacon around every 10-30 minutes depending on how important it is to stay on the map. if youre not doing anything emcomm related or actively being tracked there's really no reason to beacon more than that. also check your decay settings if you have them, some firmware versions handle that differently.

the 144.390 channel really does get hammered in some areas, especially near cities. people running 1 minute intervals parked in their driveway are the reason digis get congested. so yeah good on you for catching it early.

i had the exact same issue when i first set mine up, took me a while to realize smart beaconing doesnt just magically know youre sitting still right away, theres a speed threshold it has to drop below first and mine was set too high so it kept thinking i was crawling along. once i actually read the manual properly (lol) i got it sorted. now mine does like 2 minutes when im driving around and drops to every 20 minutes when parked. aprs.fi is super useful for checking yourself like you did, i still pull it up occasionally just to make sure things look sane.