APRS related Posts
I am not sure why but I finally read how to setup Analog APRS on my BTECH DMR-6x2 HT radio. I want to say that I played with it before but for some reason, I do not think I ever read the setup instruction file that was included with the update that allowed the radio to beacon out packets.
Overall the setup was easy. The only thing I needed to do to get it working after I did the programming was to make sure the GPS was turned on and it got a lock. Once that happened when I hit the PTT it would beacon out a posit packet.
So in some ways this is like my old Kenwood TH-D7G, it will beacon out packets, of course with that thing, I had to supply my own GPS. This radio has GPS unit built in. The thing that this doesn't do of course is allow you to send APRS messages. It does not decode packets, so you have no incoming display of info. Basically the only thing it will do is make the radio a tracker unit.
Which is of course the cavet, if you just need a tracker then the setup makes sense. If you need more, then you are going to likely have to go with something else. Like say a Phone with APRSDroid, and some sort of TNC/or audio cable setup. I have used the BTECH this way and it works pretty good. Of course it's just a lot of equipment to have but it is a portable APRS setup, which is nice. APRSDroid is not the greatest software but I think it's the only one for an Android device. Still if you want more than to beacon out a position, then it a good option if you want to use an Android device.
I have to say getting Direwolf downloaded and compiled was pretty simple. Following the User Guides online to set it up as Digipeater was pretty straight forward. I had two setups.
The first was the tracker. One UV-5R connected to a Mobilinkd TNC and then via Bluetooth to my Android phone using APRSDroid. This was a pretty simple setup.
The second was the Digipeater. A UV-5R connected to my Laptop with a BTECH-APRS-V01 cable. Again a pretty simple setup for testing.
So once I had those setup, I ran Direwolf from the CLI and it started no problem. But it wasn't transmitting to the radio. After a few moments, I released I forgot to put the digi's radio in VOX mode since I don't have a PTT interface. Once I got that fixed and restarted Direwolf. I noticed the digi's packet on APRSDroid. So success there.
The next test was the one that had me stumped. Fromm APRSDroid, I would send a packet out. The digi's radio indicated that it was receiving something, but the packet was not decoded. The only thing I think of is it was an audio setting. Going through the guides I had talked about use alsamixer to set the audio levels. I tried that with as many configurations that I could think of to set. Still no go. So I set everything aside and went work.
While working, I started thinking about what could be wrong here. Finally, I wondered , hey technically my Linux Distro uses pulseAudio. I wonder if that's the culprit. A quick Google search and I come across a PDF document for Direwolf. In it, it clearly states that with pulseAudio, you should use pavucontrol to set the audio. I was like, ok it's worth a try. So after fiddling with the mic settings, there I go back to testing Direwolf.
Much to my surprise, I fire up Direwolf and have APRSDroid send a beacon. Direwolf's output shows the packet. On APRS.fi, it shows that that packet was IGATEd to the APRS-IS servers. Which means I had a success.
Now that I know that Direwolf was pretty easy to configure, I can try to plan out what my APRS Digi will really look like. One thing for sure, I think I want to use a Raspberry Pi for this project. I'll keep all of you posted with progress.
As I have been doing some research on stuff, I found what seems like a simple but vital key into what I may need to build an APRS Digipeater or APRS tracker. It is the Direwolf software. Seems it acts as a software audio based TNC and more.
It has all the feature I need to set it up as either Tracker or Digipeater build in. It even has routing. You could hook up 3 radios, if you had 3 audio interfaces on a computer and then have it setup to repeater packets from one interface over to other interfaces. It can even act as an IGATE. For a tracker, you can hook up a USB GPS puck and will read the NMEA data and then beacon out.
I am going to be testing it out today since I think I have everything I need. I have my laptop that I will install Direwolf on and configure, a BTECH APRS cable, 2 HTs (one for the Digipeater and one tracker), a Mobilinkd, and my phone (Which will run APRSDroid).
I post my results after I run my test.