Bob Bruninga WB4APR has left a huge impact on the amateur radio community and will be missed greatly. His legacy as the inventor of "Automatic Packet Reporting System" or APRS for short created entirely new product categories and use cases for low speed packet data dating back to the late 1980's.
Almost 40 years later, the use of APRS continued to evolve and Bob was still very active in giving presentations and sharing ideas on how else to use this aspect of amateur radio even after he was diagnosed with cancer in 2020. His passing in February of 2022 was not a surprise, but something many hoped would not happen.
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| K2GOG's Kenwood TH-D74 receiving Bob WB4APR while traveling in Connecticut in 2017. |
Remembering WB4APR: K2GOG Memories
Before I became a licensed radio amateur, a friend of mine, Scott WA2INP but was KB2UZQ back then, had an uncle James KB2RSB who was interested in connecting computers to radio.
In the late 1990's, the internet was not what we know it as today and amateur radio "bulletin board systems" or BBS's were popular ways to share information across a network of VHF packet gateways on Long Island where I grew up.
While most people at the time were using packet BBS from home, James was doing this from his car with a laptop, mobile radio and modem.
This was super interesting to me and I was motivated to make the jump from CB to amateur radio because of this moment in time.
Just a few years later, Kenwood released the TH-D7a handheld radio which had built in APRS and packet communications. I saved up money from my job at Radio Shack and traveled into Manhattan to Barry Electronics to purchase this new radio.
The owner, Barry, was surprised someone of my age (19?) has the cash to afford this expensive radio and wanted to make sure I could pay for it before he got it from his inventory. I forked over my obscene amount of cash for the radio, spare battery and speaker mic. My parents were not happy on how much money I just spent on my new hobby.
Playing with this radio on the Long Island Rail Road ride home was my entry to the future and something that even inspired my career which included LBS engineering at Sprint after leaving Radio Shack and before diving into the market research/advisory world I have been in ever since, focusing on commercial telematics and location aware technology among other things.
Soon after getting the battery charged up after the long train ride home, I connected the TH-D7ag to a Sharp OZ-770 pocket organizer which had serial terminal features.
Quickly I was then using the tiny organizer connected to my radio to connect to the local packet BBS. I think the first thing I downloaded over that 1200 baud connection was a basic overview of APRS.
A few pay checks later, I went to West Marine and purchased a Garmin GPSIII. This was an early portable GPS unit which was as big as the Kenwood radio itself. Connecting the GPS with a mess of bulky cables to the radio gave me the ability to share my location with other radio amateurs and share text messages back and forth. Demonstrating this at the LIMARC ARRL Field Day in 2003 amazed many people who could watch my location in real time as I rode my bike around the Field Day site and the signal was received by Rich N2STU, SK back under the shaded operating tents with computers.
Considering by 2004, its crazy to imagine how far things have come since then about APRS. I have done so much with APRS over the past 17 years which is best saved for another day.
I have two parallel paths in the early 2000's which meant I could take my Motorola StarTac phone and connect it to my organizer to access the internet at a blazing 19.2kbps or use my ham radio gear for other communication needs.
Ever since that time, it has been fascinating to watch how mobile broadband and location aware communications has evolved in the commercial world as well as for the normal every day consumer with our smartphones today.
Over the years I would have occasional communication with Bob on a range of topics hobby and non hobby related, but still focused around situational awareness.
I owe a lot to Bob WB4APR for his contributions and he will be missed!
Lasting Impact of WB4APR
The amateur radio hobby has lost a huge asset and Bob will truly be missed. While HVDN was only formed in 2017, APRS has been a very popular topic on our blog as the third most popular tag behind "DMR" and "SDR". Here is a short list of some of the APRS focused articles to show how wide an impact Bob has made just in the last few years.
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