Re: APRStoot (logout) 06/24/24
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If you're interested in ham radio, you maybe saw logout's post about
APRS[1]. In it, he mentioned a program he wrote called "aprstoot",
which receives APRS messages at OK1ZXS-15, and posts them to a
mastodon account. Quite fascinating!
APRS is a 2m / VHF thing, which means that range is limited. However,
APRS is also a gateway and internet thing, which means that range is
UNLIMITED. To test out the theory, I setup my APRS station this week
in an attempt to reach OK1ZXS-15.
My gear is not fancy. I have a Yaesu FT-2980R transceiver, with an
EasyDigi[2] that plugs into the mic jack and audio jack for PTT,
galvanic isolation, and audio in/out. There's a Diamond CP22E antenna
on my roof. The EasyDigi connects to a laptop that I have setup just
for ham radio, where Direwolf and SARTrack are installed.
A few miles from my house there is an i-Gate station on a tower, which
I can reach without any issues. When I send location packets, or
messages, that's usually the station that receives them and sends them
on. I directed a message to OK1ZXS-15, and sure enough, it showed up
on mastodon moments later[3]. It worked!
What a cool little piece of software, thanks logout!
If anyone out there is curious about APRS, I'll note that it can be
used for position tracking, text messaging, SMS and Email gateway
messaging, and even Winlink. If you've got 2m capabilities and the
ability to wire up your radio to a computer (not nearly as hard as you
might think), then APRS might be something to check out.
[1]
gopher://i-logout.cz:70/0/phlog/posts/2024-05-11_aprstoot.txt
[2]
https://nu6xb.eecs.berkeley.edu/site/index.php/eecs/easy-digi-modifying/
[3]
https://botsin.space/@aprstoot
