Working in APRS packet mode with ISS

I'm just into this, working in APRS packet mode with ISS. Many of my friends who actively involved with APRS have worked with ISS before but for some reason, I've left behind. Not until few days ago when finally, my beacon is heard, repeated and s-gated from ISS to satellite APRS gateway and finally showed up in ariss.net. My setup won't allow me to communicate with ISS BBS system nor messaging since I'm 'misusing' aprx (meant to be as internet gateway for APRS) to send the beacons. I'm still looking for a terminal based software which can run on Linux to experiment further with the BBS and what nots.

Anyway, thanks to many of my friends, now I know that I could track the ISS using SatScape (Java) that could be run from any operating system (I'm running Mac OSX Leopard). And now I learnt that using WIDE1-1, WIDE2-1 while working with ISS is not advisable. Bob has suggested that we should use ARISS, APRSAT or WIDE as per his FAQ found here.

Here is the first time my callsign appeared in ariss.net:

Happy new year..

Probably a belated one, 2011 is already on the 9th day today. Nothing much interesting happening I guess since last October since I didn't post anything. Anyway, listed are the latest things (happening or in my hands :).

• I've bought a Kenwood TM-D710A, replacing my TM-V71A/OT2/Nuvi350 setup in my pickup. 
• TM-V71A is now my main 2m/70cm radio in my shack, I wasn't able to monitor or transmit on 2m/70cm bands for quite a while. I had the FT60R connected to the only base antenna that I've installed and it was connected to a TT4/APRS and acted as fill-in digipeater and TNC interface to my igate. The shack setup is now has TM-V71A, band B as data and band A is free for me to monitor any local conversation on the repeaters or simplex channels while not missing any data coming into the other band.
• FT-60R is now temporarily retired until I can find a new task for it. Few of us were talking about satellites communication, probably now the right time to go forward with it. Found lot of hams are using FT-60R for it. Now, the raw materials are readily available.. need to find the 'urge' to start working on it :)
• In the CarPC world, I've 'upgraded' my CarPC setup, it is running on solid state drive (SSD) now, after I had a harddrive failure, I believe upgrading to SSD is necessary. I'm trying to migrate the frontend from Centrafuse to RideRunner since RR has nicer support for my HDR (HD Radio).
• Work-wise, I'm still stuck doing SAP development. But then again, I'm not going to venture out doing something else. I will eat, sleep, walk & program .. ABAP :) Office is busy doing an upgrade exercise, they're going to upgrade both the CRM & R/3 to the latest packages and I believe I'll be the last in the chain as usual :) Nothing unusual though ..