[aprssig] APRS help

[Rahn]

All this discussion about AJ3U-5 is very interesting. But I am looking 
for some very basic help. I have a Kenwood TMD700A and I have put my 
basic settings in it like my callsign, the baud rate etc.... The path is 
set to RELAY, WIDE. I am in the middle of a GPS build project so I don't 
actually have a GPS running yet so I have put a fixed position in there. 
I have put in some position comments etc...

The radio appears to be beconing every so often. I am also getting some 
occasional messages back here locally and when I go to another nearby 
town I am getting a lot of messages, some from a long ways away.

Here's the problem. I don't know if I am actually getting out with my 
rig. I don't have another APRS equiped radio to see if I am getting 
messages from it. And when I go to other towns and am getting a lot of 
messages I would think that I would begin to see my station show up at 
findu. I have checked findu and openaprs and I am not showing up either 
place. I think that the problem is that I don't have the correct stuff 
in the path.

I also have a question about callsigns as the appear on APRS. I have 
seen regular callsigns, and I have seen callsigns followed by a dash and 
a number such as AJ3U-5. What is the following number for and should I 
have it on my callsign as well?

I have a ton of other questions but I guess only a couple at a time are 
best. Hopefully I will get a lot of good use out of this group because 
APRS is not widely known or used here locally.

Thanks for any and all help that is forthcoming.

-- 
Rahn Abbott
W7DOA
73