The SondeHub map shows the horizon from that altitude:
And which stations have been receiving it:
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Just shows the ones which have received the target.
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From EA2RCF LoRa APRS MAP
MM0EFI-10 has been ballooned. 
But on aprs.fi
Station info for MM0EFI-10 – aprs.fi – live APRS map
No sign of the balloon?
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That balloon was launched on 3rd August and is also transmitting WSPR on HF, which allows it to be tracked throughout its “orbit”:
But until this morning, it hadn’t been received on 70cm since 6th August (over Russia).
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MM0EFI-10 was tracking the balloon from above Glencoe in the west, up to 200km east of me, but a GM i-gate kept receiving beacons over 400km out!
MM0EFI-10 tracking the balloon across Scotland
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Impressive coverage.
I was checking aprs.fi for the stats for your station as posted above and was unsure why aprs.fi didn’t show the packets for the balloon but https://lora.ham-radio-op.net/ did. ?
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Yes John, I’ve noticed that various sites pick up different stats from the APRS-IS - it must depend on the small delays between whichever server you upload to?
I didn’t manage to receive that balloon today, but did achieve a similar range from a German one last week, which was 35km above the English Channel:
However that wasn’t LoRa - it was 1200 baud AFSK-FM (on 432.5).
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That high-altitude pico-balloon SP0LND-12 will be coming over Europe again today, having flown around the world in the last 12 days!
In addition to WSPR on 20m, it also transmits LoRa APRS on three frequencies on 70cm, including 439.9125 (more details here).
Its projected track crosses England and heads over the North Sea today:
and from an altitude of 12km it has a line-of-sight horizon (the blue circle) around 400km. IGates at the ready…
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I wasn’t at home to watch this in person, but I’d guess APRS-IS might well have seen quite a few copies of each packet, if the syslog from my iGate’s any indication. It received 70 fixes and 3 messages from SP0LND-12:
- First packet at Aug 28 12:59:50 UTC from 51.35966N / -2.56717E / 38.8km (Near Upper Stanton west of Bath)
- Closest packet at Aug 28 13:15:54 UTC from 51.62167N / -2.20183E / 13.1km (Just south-west of Tetbury)
- Last packet at Aug 28 15:35:20 UTC from 53.86850N / 0.50217E / 310.0km (Over the North Sea east of Hull)
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Can I pick collective brains please? Which is the current favourite board for an igate/digipeater?
I’ve been looking at the Heltec V3 Wifi, but if there are better/easier boards to use Id be interested in people’s views.
Ta
Mike
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The Heltec V3 is a nice compact board, I prefer it over the Lily Go V1.6.
The main advantage for me is that the Heltec has the IPX antenna connector as opposed to the SMA connector on the Lilygo, buts that’s just personal preference.
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The full list of boards supported by Ricardo’s LoRA_APRS_iGate.git repository:
is as follows:
dwp@chebyshev:$ cat platformio.ini | grep “env:”
[env:ttgo-lora32-v21]
[env:ttgo-lora32-v21_915]
[env:heltec-lora32-v2]
[env:heltec_wifi_lora_32_V3]
[env:heltec_wireless_stick]
[env:heltec_wireless_stick_lite_v3]
[env:heltec_wireless_stick_lite_v3_display]
[env:ESP32_DIY_LoRa]
[env:ESP32_DIY_LoRa_915]
[env:ESP32_DIY_1W_LoRa]
[env:ESP32_DIY_1W_LoRa_915]
[env:ttgo-t-beam-v1_2]
[env:ttgo-t-beam-v1_2_915]
[env:ttgo-t-beam-v1]
[env:ttgo-t-beam-v1_915]
[env:ttgo-t-beam-v1_SX1268]
[env:ttgo-t-beam-v1_2_SX1262]
[env:ESP32_DIY_LoRa_A7670]
[env:ESP32_DIY_LoRa_A7670_915]
[env:heltec_wireless_tracker]
[env:heltec_ht-ct62]
[env:OE5HWN_MeshCom]
[env:WEMOS-LOLIN32-OLED-DIY]
[env:WEMOS-D1-R32-RA02]
[env:esp32c3_DIY_1W_LoRa]
[env:esp32c3_DIY_1W_LoRa_915]
Personally I use the LILYGO® TTGO LoRa32 V2.1 (env:ttgo-lora32-v21):
or the Heltec WiFi LoRa 32 V3 (env:heltec-lora32-v2)
Interestingly, it appears the Heltec Wireless Tracker
is also supported in the repository (heltec_wireless_tracker) but it is not one I have yet tried.
Dave
6 Likes
Two quick questions on this subject:
1 which is the best temp/pressure sensor to add looking at the the BMP280 as seems to be the one.
2. If an igate board has GPS does the firmware from CA2RXU pick this up or will it mean manually updating each time a repeater is deployed?
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I have used the BME680 as this gives you temperature, humidity, pressure and air quality. I found the temperature did need to be calibrated against a lab grade glass thermometer, as it was initially reading 2.5 degrees C high. I have also just added a sun shade around the sensor to prevent high temperature readings when in direct sunlight, but we will see if that works today 
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Just occasionally my iGate logs something it thinks it has received successfully (well, without CRC errors) but the log looks something like this:
Sep 3 16:35:55 M0LEP-10 CA2RXU_LoRa_iGate_1.3 RX / <DB>pŘ#015<D2><F8><F9>{<A4><<A8><BF><BA><F2><B8>u<D9>l<B8>#025<A5><AB><88>#037<ED>1<FF><98>WTP<C4>#020T<BD>#016#031.גz<87><93>^?$m<F9>#014<BE><BB>n<F8><97><96><D4>#015K9U<8A>㝐sm<EE>g<93>tac9<99><9B><F5><B1>#010#020<E0><EA>No<BD>J<A6>n<FB>#025Ko<8F>˜<98>#005<E7>U8<F0>E<C5>Õ<EC>#002<82><A8> / -127dBm / -24.00dB / 31208Hz
I assume it’s just hit a random “somehow the CRC worked out with gibberish” situation. Anyone have any better ideas?
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Hi all,
I have been playing with LoRa trackers with some good results (we are lucky to have a few good iGates in the area).
However have spotted on occasions there are dead spots after some testing I discovered that if I connect the tracker to the car 2/70 mag mounted antenna the local iGate would pick it up so ordered the parts to build a repeater.
Parts all arrived today and flashed with CA2RXU’s firmware setup and took out for a test, it seemed to work well probably around 50% of the packets where repeated to a local igate which obviously had not picked the tracker up directly.
I know repeaters are not ideal but thinking long-term would be good to deploy a repeater on the car while I am out SOTAing. In the hope more packets make it to an igate.
So after all that ramble my questions are:
Has anyone else built a repeater - what settings do you suggest? What firmware are you using?
The repeater is reporting the wrong location unless I update the location each time which is annoying - any suggestion of how to get around this? (current hardware is a heltec v3)
I have read the license and my understanding is that as a M7 I am allowed to do this am I correct?
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I frequently do exactly this. I have a T-beam that acts either as a digipeater or an igate. I set it up on site when I arrive and park up. I have a portbale 4G router that provided the connection to APRS.is. I don’t tend to use this if a digipeater will do. I have a 440 MHz mag mount on the car/van. Currently you do need to manually set the location but I have an app that copies the lat/long to the clipboard so it’s quick and easy to paste it into the AP.
I keep all the gear in a small plastic box in the car/campervan ready to use when needed.
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Use a board with GPS. For a static digipeater there is no need but for one that you use from different locations then it will make life easier. You can use the software on a Heltec Wireless Tracker board.
The tracker software has an option for digipeating. It makes sense to me that we all should have that enabled when we are out.
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The current igate/digipeater software from Ricardo doesn’t support GPS. It’s on his “to do” list.
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