[OZAPRS] Raspbery Pi (RPi) Gateway

[Ray Wells]

Thanks Mark.

The latest on the project is that I had xastir running successfully so I 
moved on to try something else. I was heading towards aprx; had it 
installed and sorted the config file when along came dixprs, a 
gateway/digi program written in Python, making it cross-platform.

I had dixprs running all night talking to aprsis. I've just added a TNC 
and an Icom IC2A so it "should" now be operating as a rx only Igate. 
I've yet to see traffic even though the DCD LED is reporting activity 
and my other rx is hearing traffic. Might be a config issue to resolve - 
something I'll deal with throughout the day.

dixprs keeps a database of information and sends (optionally) this as 
telemetry to the aprsis each 15 minutes. Look at vk2tv-4 on aprs.fi.  
Mention is made in the docs of munin, a program that creates wonderful 
colour graphs of various aprs traffic. It installed just fine on the RPi 
as a deb package but it needed up to near 80% of the processor. munin 
has now been removed!!

If you're tempted to try dixprs be aware that the station coordinates 
are required in decimal degrees and not the standard aprs format.

More later.

Ray vk2tv




On 05/09/12 09:05, Mark Dods wrote:
> On 3/09/2012 2:17 PM, Ray Wells wrote:
>> All,
>>
>> For somewhere around two years or so I'd been searching for a 
>> computer with low input energy requirements to use as a gateway 
>> machine to replace a conventional desktop system. And then I moved 
>> location quite suddenly which threw my plans into chaos. I'm now in a 
>> position to reestablish gateway facilities with 2m, 30m and satgate 
>> facilities, as per my original gateway.
>>
>> Although I'd looked at the RPi (http://www.raspberrypi.org/) as a 
>> suitable computer, it was Bernard F6BVP (maintainer of xfbb and fpac) 
>> reporting that he had compiled a kernel with ax25 support that got me 
>> really interested. The latest Debian kernel - 
>> 2012-08-16-wheezy-raspbian.img -has kernel ax25 included.
>
> [Snip]
>
> Hi Ray,
>
> I'm a lurker on the OZAPRS list as I'm interested, but have never got 
> around to actually implementing APRS.
>
> I don't really have anything to contribute except to congratulate you 
> on your Raspberry Pi post. Its one of the most interesting and 
> informative mailing list posts I've ever read. I'll be watching for 
> progress reports with interest!
>