I’m working on trying to set up a Pi-based digipeater for APRS but I am running into a problem – namely, the Baofeng APRS cable appears to be making the donated Baofeng UV5R kindly donated by KF0BTJ to act very strangely. The display is corrupted and the device never transmits. I can jiggle the cable in different ways but it never did transmit, even after wiping the Pi and reinstalling/reconfiguring Direwolf.
I’ve decided to roll back to an RX-only iGate right now, mostly following the instructions at https://n1aae.com/raspberry-pi-aprs-direwolf-linux-igate-digipeater. I still intend to setup a full APRS digipeater, as there is no APRS coverage in this area. I ordered a replacement APRS cable from Amazon this evening. At $26+ shipped, they are not cheap, but it is cheaper than a HAT TNC on the Pi. The only one I can find now is at MFJ (https://mfjenterprises.com/products/mfj-1270pi-pitnc-board) and, at $80, I’ll try a new cable first.
30 minutes later…
So whereupon I installed Direwolf and reattached the APRS cable “just for fun” the damned thing starts working. I’m now able to transmit out on my iGate. Why is this working all of a sudden? No idea. Maybe the latest version of Direwolf (1.6 at the time of this writing in Nov. 2020) fixed something. Maybe my cable was wonky and now it’s in just the right position. I don’t know. But it’s working, and I’m loathe to touch it.
Alas, my desk is also my 7 year-old daughter’s school spot for now so I’ll have to move this contraption elsewhere. The lesson is, obviously, just give up on a project and come back to it two weeks later and it’ll start working again. Yes, that has to be the moral of today’s post.
Now, off to go cancel that cable order….
15 minutes later…
Cable order is canceled. After some config-tweaking (I had the wrong latitude/longitude from Google Maps plugged into my direwolf conf so it was showing up in the middle of a corn field several miles away) I finally have a digipeater up and running.
The Baofeng is using a Signal Stick dual-band antenna right now. If I plan on keeping this up, and I do, I really should get it hooked up to an Ed Fong or some other sort of dual band vertical outside.