| Project | M0MNF APRS iGate |
|---|---|
| Hardware | Raspberry Pi 5, RTL-SDR v3 and Diamond X-50 antenna |
| Frequency | 144.800 MHz APRS in the UK |
| Software | Dire Wolf decoding packets and forwarding heard RF traffic to APRS-IS |
| Dashboard | Live APRS tile, coverage map and local stats on m0mnf.com |
My Raspberry Pi 5 APRS iGate dashboard using an RTL-SDR, Dire Wolf and 144.800 MHz APRS reception.
APRS iGate
I've always had something of a thing for APRS. I'm nosey, it gives a view of what's happening on the air locally, stations moving about, trackers popping up on one of the motorways, the (very) occasional balloon based experiment drifting by. Rather than relying on other people's infrastructure, I decided to put up a small receive station at home.M0MNF-10 is a simple iGate listening on 144.800MHz. It's got one job and one job only: hear RF packets and forward them on to the internet APRS network so they pop up on sites like aprs.fi.
The station uses an RTL-SDR v3 SDR and decodes in software. Back in the day you needed a dedicated packet setup, now there's a Pi sitting on my desk and it's working.
Hardware
- Receiver: RTL-SDR USB dongle
- Host: Raspberry Pi 5
- Antenna: Diamond X-50 vertical
- Feedline: Short run of RG-58
- Height: ~35 m ASL with antenna ~10 m above ground
Software
- Direwolf acts as the TNC, decoding 1200-baud AFSK APRS packets
- Packets heard on RF are forwarded to APRS-IS via the European server cluster.
Integration
It runs locally, so it was nice and easy to hook the iGate into my website.A small script periodically analyses the packets heard and publishes a JSON summary which powers the APRS tile you can see down below. The tile shows:
- how many packets were heard today
- which stations it's heard
- the furthest station received
- activity by hour
What the station does
The station is an iGate only.It listens on RF & forwards packets to the internet APRS network. It doesn't currently transmit or digipeat packets back onto RF.
APRS Dashboard
The dashboard updates every 5 minutes. As you'll see APRS is pretty quiet by me, but as with everything else on here, it's just for me.APRS
M0MNF-10 iGate
Updated 21:58
Packets today
35
Stations heard
4
Longest heard today
M0AQM-5
30.9 km
Longest ever
G0TPZ-11
70.0 km
Top heard
G4LEE-9
18
M0AQM-5
13
M8HYU-2
3
M7JVH-9
1
APRS Coverage
Coverage · last 7 days · best point per station
Top 5 All-Time Distances
Longest real APRS position packets heard by the iGate
| # | Station | Distance | Heard |
|---|---|---|---|
| Loading all-time records… | |||
Keeping Track of Me
Top 10 daily furthest APRS positions more than 500m from home heard by the iGate
| # | Station | Distance | Heard |
|---|---|---|---|
| Loading my away-from-home positions… | |||