APRS Beacon

A command-line script for making pi-star hotspots visible on the aprs.fi map.

While MMDVMHost can be configured to forward APRS positional messages with no issue; when configured strictly for the DMR network the hotspot has no beacon capability.

Installation

Make sure your pistar hotspot has a callsign, latitude and longitude configured. Keep in mind that this script does not do reduce the accuracy of the coordinates. If you value your privacy omit a few decimal places.

To download and install:

cd /tmp
wget -O aprs_beacon.tgz https://github.com/marek/aprs_beacon/releases/latest/download/aprs_beacon.tgz

# make pistar filesystem writeable
rpi-rw

# download and extract to root
sudo tar -vxzf aprs_beacon.tgz -C /
sudo chown mmdvm:mmdvm /home/mmdvm/aprs_beacon

# edit SSID suffix, APRS symbol and description
sudo nano /etc/aprs_beacon

# make pistar filesystem read-only again
rpi-ro

Additional configuration

By default APRS Beacon is configured to update every 5 minutes. To change this edit the cronfile /etc/cron.d/aprs_beacon to your liking.

rpi-rw
sudo nano /etc/cron.d/aprs_beacon
rpi-ro