ZS5LT / pypacket

APRS Rx IGate framework for RTL-SDR devices.

Receive, decode, log, share APRS packets using low cost RTL-SDR devices.

Requirements

The following are required to be installed and configured on your system.

• An RTL-SDR compatible device.
• Some form of Unix-like system. I build it on Mac OS. I run it on a Raspberry Pi w/ Raspbian.
• Python >= v3.6
• rtl_fm
• multimon-ng
• Optonally, a call-sign login and password for APRS-IS to upload spots.

Setup

• config/configuration.json contains all insecure runtime configuration settings.
• If you want to upload spots to APRS-IS, ensure you have the following environment variables set:
  • PYPACKET_USERNAME - Your call sign for APRS-IS
  • PYPACKET_PASSWORD - Your password for APRS-IS
• Run pip install -r requirements.txt

Usage

• Run ./main.py.
  • The application will start and immediately begin listening on the configured frequency.
  • Logged packets will be output to your terminal, written to a file in the logs directory, and (if configured) uploaded to APRS-IS.

Release Notes

• 11/17/2019 (v4.0)
  • All new tabular CLI UI for packet output.
  • Can now be configured to have N processors.
  • Configuration format improvements.
  • New dependencies, be sure to pip install -r requirements.txt.
  • Resolves bug #11 where an rtl_fm startup crash was not being detected, causing excessive CPU usage.
• 11/9/2019 (v3.2)
  • Some configuration variables changed names.
  • Code cleanup, test cleanup, etc.
  • Quality reports via Codacy.
• 3/10/2019 (v3.1 / v3.1.1 / v3.1.2)
  • Connect once at start to APRS-IS.
  • All packets uploaded immediately.
  • Connection resiliency, will reconnect when disconnected.
  • Configurable APRS-IS server host.

Contributing

You are welcome to contribute by submitting pull requests on GitHub if you would like. Feature / enhancement requests may be submitted via GitHub issues.

Credits

• Radio tower icon found in the logo courtesy of The Noun Project.
• Project was inspired by pymultimonaprs.