List of #APRS Projects (and interesting alternatives)

I’ve expanded my search beyond what I introduced in APRS tracker/viewer build concept. Here I will attempt to organize projects some other folks have put together.

This has been sitting in draft mode for several weeks, but I’m pushing it out now and hoping to add more as I learn.

• APRS Trackers (transmitters)
  • Flying Squirrel #5 – Getting ready for a March 2020 launch. – a HAB tracker made by pulling the guts out of a cheap Baofeng
  • 2M Arduino 818 – a HAB tracker sold by the designer
  • Tiny Trackuino – hardware design for Arduino. Trackuino software.
  • Transmitter Bits
    • Adafruit Feather M0 RFM69HCW Packet Radio – 433MHz – RadioFruit – not for APRS frequency, but could be used to tie into a network on 70 cm band
• APRS transceiver bits
  • SPOILER ALERT! – The DRA818V works on APRS 144.390MHz – explains how a certain part can be used to transmit on the North American APRS frequency
• Not APRS, but instructive
  • Arduino Walkie Talkie – Triband transceiver with text-messaging capability
  • ArduTrx – Open Source Hamradio Transceiver for Arduino – another neat transceiver built on the Arduino platform. Although this says “HF”  on the part, it is for VHF/UHF FM operation. A bit more info here.
  • HamShield 1.0 – VHF/UHF FM transceiver shield for Ardiuno. Also the
    • Hamshielf Mini and
    • HamShield: LoRa Edition – 1 Watt – 144/440/915MHz – Version 2.
  • ARMAWATCH & ARMACHAT – long range radio messengers – LoRa p2p or broadcast messaging, looks interesting.
  • Off The Grid Messenger – LoRa p2p messaging (Hackaday).
  • Adafruit Feather M0 Radio with RFM69 Packet Radio – tutorial for radio Arduino
  • ArduTrx – Open Source Hamradio Transceiver for Arduino
• Not APRS, mesh networks
  • Meshtastic – Mesh text communicator built on various LoRa boards, includes location information in packets
    • Overview from another angle
  • Disaster.radio – Mesh text communicator, similar to Meshtastic (I have not done a deep comparison, both look like they use similar hardware).
  • QMesh – A LoRa-based Voice Mesh Network
  • CellSol – A LoRa “not-quite-mesh” network
  • TARPN – Terrestrial Amateur Radio Packet Network – setup requires more hardware, but pretty standardized and probably much more robust than LoRa systems.
• APRS, but on LoRa
  • APRS via LoRa: Send your position data via LoRa!
    • Email list on groups.io
  • LoRa Aprs – another APRS via LoRa page, but focused on custom hardware.
    • English translation with Google Translate
  • esp32_loraprs – Amateur radio ESP32 based LoRa APRSDroid KISS Bluetooth modem + LoRa APRS-IS RX/TX iGate server over WiFI + digipeater + Codec2 DV modem (in conjunction with Android frontend application).