What is DAPNet?
DAPNET is a pager network. It consists of a decentralised server cluster feeding paging data to distributed transmitters. The most used frequency is 439.9875 MHz (UK, Holland, Germany etc.) and the protocol is POCSAG. Common paging receivers are of type Skyper or AlphaPoc, but there exist others as well. As it is used on amateur radio frequencies, commercial use is forbidden.
You can send messages (maximum 80 characters) using your DAPNet login (see Get your Pager Identification below), by and Android App call DAPNET, or sending a DMR Text message , or via APRS or even through a Pi-Star Hotspot. So, DAPNET can be used for sending Personal messages to other users. You can also choose to receive News, DX updates, Weather and lots of other things. Look at ‘RUBRICS’ to find out more.
- On the DAPNet App just click on the red envelope on the bottom right and compose the message in the same way as the web version.
- Messages for DAPNet are to be sent to DMR ID 262994.The format [callsign] [message], for instance G4XXX This is a message from DMR to DAPNet . This sends a message text ‘This is a message from DMR to DAPNet’ to user G4XXX . Prerequisite is that G4XXX is a registered DAPNet user.
- Through Telegram’s Bot following the instructions in the / help command.
- Via APRS. From an APRS device send a message to POCGAT-1 with the following syntax: call-recipient @ message to send. (eg G4GBA @ Hi Fred did you want a beer?).
To apply for your personal pager ID Pager Code
You need to get an identification code for your Pager or “RIC” for yourself. The best way is to first get a DMR Call (even though you might not use it at all, the Pager code is related to the DMR). You can register without, and get an Identity RIC not related to a DMR – but just get a DMR code first! You never know, you might want to play DMR some time as well!
Get a DMR ID Code: Apply for a DMR ID code here. It’s free! You should get an Email with your new ID.
Then get your Pager Identification: Apply for a Pager RIC for yourself. It is personal to you and identifies your personal pager for messages. Apply for a RIC Code here – use the following: Select apply for RIC and you should see the drop down menu below. Enter your callsign in lower case, and also your DMR ID which you got from the above step. You should get an Email which will give you a login for the DAPNet website on https://hampager.de/#/ .
POCSAG pagers
You can get pagers quite cheaply: You will need to program them to get messages, this can be done manually, or via a program – for which you need a special lead to program them. Here are some suggestions:
- Alphapoc Europe,
- BI7JTA sells them as well,
- There are lots of clones etc. on Ebay. Make sure that the the right Frequency and for POCSAG (In Germany they use old SKYPER pagers).
Need a home network?
You can run your own pager node at home connected to DAPNet. This will also run DMR, DSTAR and a few others – try Pi-Star software and look at their web pages.
If you want to run DAPNet as well on your node, then you need to also get a Transmitter Code for your node: See here for details.
