Building a LoRa APRS 439Mhz iGate (Part 1)

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I ordered a LoRa 32 board and tried to build/configure it.
Hit a snag. My PC was x86 (32bit) and the VSC was 64bit. I did get hold of an old 32bit version of the VSC and that appeared to work when compiling but then hit another snag, one of the modules was not supported. At that point last night, I was done and tea was calling.

This morning I dug out an SFF PC and built that with Windows 10 x64.
Installed VSC and PlatformIO. Had a struggle getting WiFi to work but I think I was building/compiling to the wrong board in VSC. Fast forward about 2 hours of playing (in between actual paid work) and I now have Wifi working and m0vaz-10 appears on aprs.fi.

Currently the config is set to use rx/tx of 433775000 - tx_enable = false
I suspect I will have to alter this to 43991250 for the UK APRS/LoRa freq.

Question - how can I have m0vaz-10 (2m APRS) and m0vaz-10 (LoRa 439mhz) both showing on the map?

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You need to choose different SSIDs for your 2m APRS and 70cm LoRa iGates. I use -10 for APRS and -11 for LoRa …

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Cheers

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grafik

working :+1:

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Stalker! Thanks. Just need to alter the frequency next for RX.

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Frequency changed. Just need a someone to be walking/driving/hiking who has a LoRa APRS tracker to see if my setup works

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Fine!
73 Chris
:wave:

Screenshot_20240403-150432_Chrome
Screenshot_20240403-150432_Chrome1920Ă—1200 261 KB

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That’s using 2m. Need the same on 439.9125mhz now using LoRa.

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Ok.
Chris
Lora iGate DL1CR-1 mobile DL1CR-4

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Well done John, you’re now showing on the LoRa APRS map:

image
image558Ă—712 86.5 KB

Hopefully you’ll pick me up the next time I go for a walk on Winter Hill.
73 de Ross.

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Thanks Ross. Yeah, lets see what happens

cheers
john

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See

http://www.aprs.org/aprs11/SSIDs.txt

In particular

SID RECOMMENDATIONS: It is very convenient to other mobile
operators or others looking at callsigns flashing by, to be able to
recognize some common applications at a glance. Here are the
recommendations for the 16 possible SSID’s (the limit of 16 comes
from the 4 bits available in the AX.25 protocol. Note, The SSID of
zero is dropped by most display applications. So a callsign with no
SSID has an SSID of 0.

-0 Your primary station usually fixed and message capable
-1 generic additional station, digi, mobile, wx, etc
-2 generic additional station, digi, mobile, wx, etc
-3 generic additional station, digi, mobile, wx, etc
-4 generic additional station, digi, mobile, wx, etc
-5 Other networks (Dstar, Iphones, Androids, Blackberry’s etc)
-6 Special activity, Satellite ops, camping or 6 meters, etc
-7 walkie talkies, HT’s or other human portable
-8 boats, sailboats, RV’s or second main mobile
-9 Primary Mobile (usually message capable)
-10 internet, Igates, echolink, winlink, AVRS, APRN, etc
-11 balloons, aircraft, spacecraft, etc
-12 APRStt, DTMF, RFID, devices, one-way trackers*, etc
-13 Weather stations
-14 Truckers or generally full time drivers
-15 generic additional station, digi, mobile, wx, etc

You can either use M0VAZ-0 or just M0VAZ (same thing) for your primary 2m 144.8MHz iGate - this is what I do with MB7UWS - and SSD -10 for you LoRa iGate.

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I’ll try and get out in the Peak District John - next time the WX permits

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Thanks Dave.

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I might have to order another one to make a tracker to test my own setup :slight_smile:

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If you can give some advanced warning I will attached the LoRa APRS to triband antenna on the side of the house to give the best chance.

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Shouldn’t the diamond be red for a LoRA iGate? I would be interested in seeing what equipment you are using.

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I am using a LoRa LilyGo Model T3 v1.6.1 with software from GitHub.

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Only if it’s a TX and a RX iGate.

A RX only iGate is Black Diamond with an L in it.

A LoRa digirepater is a Green Star with an L in it.

https://lora.ham-radio-op.net/?center=53.1403,-1.6419&zoom=16

Screenshot_2024-04-04_15-05-53

With Ricahrd Gouzman’s GitHub repos, the “stationMode” settting in the json config file “data/igate_conf.json” can be used to set the mode.

See

With
Dave

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The WX for Saturday morning looks best. I’ll try and get up G/SP-004 - above the Cat and Fiddle. The Wirral Peninsula is easily 59 (probably +40dB) from up there on the 2m, so any external antenna would do the trick. I’ll also probably take a (868MHz) Meshtastic node up with me, to see if it will bridge over the Pennines.

Dave

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