LoRa APRS iGate
Ham radio gateway that hears LoRa APRS trackers nearby and forwards their positions and messages to aprs.fi.
Chipnik catalog@chipnik-catalogWhat you need
- Board
- One of 3 boards: ESP32 DevKit, ESP32-C3 SuperMini, Heltec WiFi LoRa 32 V3
- Parts
- 433 MHz antenna
- Also
- Wi-Fi network
LoRa APRS iGate listens for LoRa APRS packets from trackers and weather stations around you and passes them to the APRS-IS internet network, so they show up on aprs.fi. It can also work as a digipeater that repeats packets over the air, and it has a web page for all settings. Original project by richonguzman on GitHub, GPL-3.0. Chipnik hosts the release binaries unchanged so you can flash them from the browser.
APRS is an amateur radio service, so you set your own callsign in the web settings. The Heltec V3 build needs nothing else. The DevKit and C3 SuperMini builds are DIY gateways with an SX1278 module; the wiring is in the project wiki.
The C3 build is flashed in parts because the merged image of that target puts its bootloader at the ESP32 address.
Firmware files come from the V4.0.4 release.
Parts
Buy everything for this project
- Heltec WiFi LoRa 32 V3BuyAliExpress
- ESP32 DevKitC (WROOM-32)BuyAliExpress
- ESP32-C3 SuperMiniBuyAliExpress
After flashing
- The board restarts by itself when flashing is done.
- The project needs Wi-Fi. How to connect it is in the project text or in the source repository.
- If nothing happens, press the RST (EN) button once.
Versions
4.0.4 added to Chipnik 2026-11-05
Release V4.0.4 of richonguzman/LoRa_APRS_iGate, files unchanged. Release notes on GitHub