APRS ID hijacked?

[twb777]

I am new to APRS and have begun experimenting with it recently, setting my Yaesu FT5 handheld to beacon and walking around in Tokyo where I live. When I did this yesterday and came back home to check what was received on aprs.fi I was surprised to see the results. My APRS call sign is JK1GWB - 7.

I found that JK1GWB-B was on a ship in the English Channel. JK1GWB-Y showed an automobile symbol but was located in the North Atlantic east of Nova Scotia. I have never used the B or Y suffix on my radio and I have not been sailing in the Atlantic Ocean for many years. Can anyone here explain to me how this can happen? I'd be grateful for any help and insight you can provide.

 

[vagrant]

Anyone can input someone’s callsign into their radio and there’s nothing to prevent that. I saw one beacon was almost a year old, the -Y, and the other recent. I also did not find the -7, but do see the -10 it appears you used.

Hmmm…looking further I see a number of callsigns at the same location as the -Y. That‘s very odd. Something may be buggy in the APRS.fi database, or it is being given bad info unintentionally. Look at the others that also have a -Y. It would be odd for a person to use all of those callsigns with what I presume is a manually programmed location, versus actually at that location in the Atlantic.

Station info for JK1GWB-Y – aprs.fi – live APRS map

Current APRS position, path, igate and digipeater statistics for JK1GWB-Y (FTM-100D via MMDVM)

aprs.fi

It is the same thing with the -B. Look at the other callsigns at the same location.

Station info for JK1GWB-B – aprs.fi – live APRS map

Current APRS position, path, igate and digipeater statistics for JK1GWB-B (70cm Voice (D-Star) 438.80000MHz +0.0000MHz)

aprs.fi

If it was me I would not worry about it.

 

[tweiss3]

Do you have a hotspot?

I just looked it up on aprs.fi. The JK1GWB-Y is via MMDVM (your hotspot). When you setup your hotspot, you put in a location. The default location may not be anywhere near accurate. The JK1GWB-D is via dstar. If you don't turn on the GPS on your radios, the default location can show the middle of nowhere. Both pistar and d-star do report your location, right or wrong.

Nobody hijacked your call sign.

 

[twb777]

Thanks for the replies. I won't worry about this. I still don't understand all of how it works, though.

 

[tweiss3]

Thanks for the replies. I won't worry about this. I still don't understand all of how it works, though.

Under the Pi-Star configuration page, the "General Configuration", you can put in coordinates to report the location of the hotspot