APRS IGate

I run a lightweight APRS IGate as 2E0KGG-10 (https://aprs.fi/info/a/2E0KGG-10) routing APRS between RF and internet.

Currently it’s a lightweight setup with no transmit capability, only receiving on 2m.

Hardware

• Raspberry Pi 3B+

  • It would happily run on something lighter but this is what I had spare

• Nooelec NESDR SMART v4 https://www.nooelec.com/store/nesdr-smart.html

  • Any RTL-SDR device would probably work here, again, a spare

• Antenna

  • Currently I’m using the little whip that came with the NESDR but it doesn’t hear much indoors

Software

I started from the Direwolf guide: https://github.com/wb2osz/direwolf/blob/master/doc/Raspberry-Pi-SDR-IGate.pdf

Raspberry Pi OS Bullseye makes setup much more straightforward as things mostly work out of the box - no DIY compilation or module blacklisting necessary.

Direwolf configuration:

MYCALL XXXXX

IGSERVER euro.aprs2.net

# https://apps.magicbug.co.uk/passcode/
IGLOGIN XXXXX XXXXX

# http://www.aprs.org/symbols/symbols-new.txt
# R& = Receive only IGate (do not send msgs back to RF)
PBEACON delay=1 every=30 sendto=IG symbol=R& lat=XXX long=YYY via=WIDE1-1,WIDE2-1

Running:

# Basic
rtl_fm -f 144.8M - | direwolf -c sdr.conf -r 24000 -t 0 -

# Debug all the things
# (Unfortunately direwolf doesn't support verbose long-opts,
# but the docs describe the various options - I never remember)
rtl_fm -f 144.8M - | direwolf -c sdr.conf -r 24000 -t 0 -dk -dn -du -dx -di -dp -df -dw -dm -dp -