Setting up Your Own APRS iGate

[PaigeHoffart]

Do you know of any Linux software to setup an iGate? I'm already running a Linux machine 24/7, so it would make a lot more sense for me to run the software there rather than having to dedicate another machine.

Try XASTIR

Paige

[deej]

Xastir looks promising - thanks!

-Dj

[Janekom]

Can anyone tell me if running your own igate will "eat up" one's monthly bandwidth. I have 3GB per month here in South Africa.

[rfinch]

Interested in this but don't want to duplicate if a neighbor one block over is running an iGate. Is there a map or list of iGates in the USA?

[SpicyChili]

Originally Posted by rfinch

Interested in this but don't want to duplicate if a neighbor one block over is running an iGate. Is there a map or list of iGates in the USA?

check out this link

http://aprs.fi/?addr=Davis%2C%20CA&m...timerange=3600

and watch the local traffic to see which igate traffic is being ported to the net.

It will be the last call sign in the path.

You can then search for those igates and see where they are located. Sometimes WX stations are also igates, sometimes not. There is no set standard for igate markings. Sometimes they are dimonds, sometimes green stars.

As for Janekom question about bandwidth. I have no idea. I would say it probably isnt a problem since the amount if traffic is so small that is being send and read. This would also depend on the amount of packets you are sending to the internet as well. I would set one up and see how busy your igate actually is.

[Janekom]

Thanks guys

[Sam Buchanan]

Per request several screen shots of UI-View config tables have been added to the first post in this thread.

[Kahuna]

Thanks Sam,
Kahunas now I-Gating!
Yipee.
From never seen a HAM, to I-gating APRS in a few short weeks. Pretty cool

[Kahuna]

I went through a couple of weeks of madness trying to get my i-gate set up.
First problem was I could not get my hardware to keep the soundcard drivers active. Turned out to be that when using RDP to control the remote server, the sound gets selected from the controlling computer, disabling the card on the controlled computer. ARGH!!!!! Once I told RDP to leave the sound on the host, wallah, the sound card stayed alive on the server. Most folks would not run into this problem. Most admins like me never care about sound over RDP. But this time was different. TOok me many many hours of debugging.

Next item was connecting to the aprs server. I found the key to be downloading the proper list. However I could not get the list to d/l through the menu selection on UI-View. I found that the default location to get the list is no longer active. You should put in france.aprs2.net/APRServe2.txt


This allowed the current list to be downloaded. I found several helpful hits on setup here.

Which ARPS server you gate to is up to you. I use this one.
noam.aprs2.net:14580;Universal connection for servers in North America

Best,

[Kahuna]

Today I discovered another big find.
While listening to the APRS freq and watching the igate log, I realized that I was receiving way more signals rf than I was decoding and gating. I decided to try another receiver. And bam, I went from gating ~200/hr to over 1500/hr. Wow! Big difference. So the moral of the story is, a good receiver puts a cleaner signal to the soundcard for decoding and gating.
I had a rat shack portable receiver and went to a rat shack desktop model I had. Good find. Funny how Im watching the area gates for who is getting what. Tracerts allow me to find the fastest routes to market on the gate.

Best,