From ea3167c8c28bc45128bc89174d2aac1c66cbb907 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: Daniel Mason <daniel@m2.nz>
Date: Thu, 16 Dec 2021 20:10:31 +1300
Subject: [PATCH] Add APRS post

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+title = "Configuring an APRS receiver with an RTL-SDR and Direwolf"
+tags = ["aprs", "amateur radio", "vhf", "direwolf"]
+date = "2021-12-16"
++++
+
+What is APRS? Automatic Packet Reporting System! Essentially a VHF radio sending out GPS location pings in the 2M ham band which can be seen at [aprs.fi](https://aprs.fi/). If you take a look at that link you will often see radiosondes and their reported data, weather stations as well as bunch of amateur operators transmitting data all over the world. Fascinating stuff.
+
+I recently got my hands on an RTL-SDR v3 which claims much better accuracy and performance over previous models. Figured I'd give it a go receiving APRS and see what I could get. I did a bit of research and tested a few different packages but ended up settling with [Direwolf](https://github.com/wb2osz/direwolf). For those interested, I'm running this on an Ubuntu 20.04 LXC container with USB passthrough for the SDR itself.
+
+Here is a run through of installing/configuring an APRS feeder with an SDR and Direwolf.
+```shell
+# Install required packages
+apt-get install rtl-sdr direwolf
+```
+
+My `sdr.conf` file for reference with callsign and location blanked out.
+```shell
+root@aprs:~# cat /root/sdr.conf
+ACHANNELS 1
+ADEVICE null null
+CHANNEL 0
+
+MYCALL <CALLSIGN>-10
+IGSERVER aunz.aprs2.net
+IGLOGIN <CALLSIGN> 23018
+
+MODEM 1200
+AGWPORT 8000
+KISSPORT 8001
+
+PBEACON sendto=IG delay=0:30 every=10:00 symbol="/-" lat=-12.3456 long=12.3456 alt=in_meter comment="RTLSDR"
+```
+
+This is my `run.sh` script I currently launch in `screen` until I can get around to setting up a systemd service.
+It simply gets the output from the APRS frequency and pipes it into direwolf launched with our above `sdr.conf` config.
+
+```shell
+#!/bin/bash
+
+# -f 144.575M Tunes to 144.575 Mhz
+# -g 20.7 is the gain value, rtl_test to view available options
+
+rtl_fm -f 144.575M -s 22050 -g 20.7 | direwolf -c /root/sdr.conf -r 22050 -D 1 -B 1200 -
+```
+If you set up the LONG/LAT coords properly, you should be able to view your home station on [aprs.fi](https://aprs.fi/)!
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