Raspberry Pi APRS Gateway

Build an affordable APRS gateway using a Raspberry Pi and RTL-SDR

The Automatic Packet Reporting System (APRS) is a digital communications protocol for real-time tactical information exchange. This project guides you through building your own APRS iGate using affordable components.

Project Overview

An APRS iGate receives packets from local RF and forwards them to the APRS-IS network, allowing worldwide tracking and messaging.

Components Required

Raspberry Pi 3B+ or newer
RTL-SDR dongle
VHF antenna (tuned for 144.390 MHz in North America)
Power supply
SD card (16GB minimum)

Estimated Cost

Total project cost: ~$75-100

Software Stack

The gateway uses several open-source components:

Direwolf: Software TNC/modem
aprx: APRS iGate daemon
Raspberry Pi OS Lite: Base operating system

Installation Steps

1. Prepare Raspberry Pi

# Update system
sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade -y

# Install dependencies
sudo apt install -y git build-essential cmake

2. Install RTL-SDR Drivers

sudo apt install -y rtl-sdr librtlsdr-dev

3. Build Direwolf

git clone https://github.com/wb2osz/direwolf
cd direwolf
mkdir build && cd build
cmake ..
make -j4
sudo make install

4. Configure APRS

Edit the configuration file to include your callsign and location:

MYCALL YOUR-CALL
IGSERVER noam.aprs2.net
IGLOGIN YOUR-CALL PASSWORD

Performance Optimization

Position antenna for maximum coverage
Use low-loss coax cable
Consider a bandpass filter to reduce interference
Monitor system temperature

Future Enhancements

Planned improvements:

Web-based statistics dashboard
Automatic antenna switching
APRS digipeater functionality
Weather station integration

Resources

Contributing

Contributions welcome! See the GitHub repository for issues and pull requests.