SondeHub APRS Gateway

This gateway takes a feed of traffic from APRS-IS, looks for APRS position reports that might be a high-altitude balloon, and uploads them to the SondeHub-Amateur database.

It also uploads the station locations of APRS receivers, if their position has recently been uploaded to APRS-IS.

This software runs within the SondeHub AWS ecosystem, and cannot be run elsewhere as it requires direct access to the SondeHub database. It does not receive APRS packets directly from a radio or act as an APRS iGate, for that you need to run other software such as direwolf.

Please contact us if you are having issues with getting your APRS payload on the SondeHub-Amateur map.

Contacts

• Mark Jessop - vk5qi@rfhead.net
• Michaela Wheeler - radiosonde@michaela.lgbt

Packet Filtering

Currently the following filters apply. Other requirements may be added in the future.

The position must:

• Be a position report (not an object). This can be compressed, uncompressed, or mic-e format.
• Use the balloon symbol (Primary Symbol Table, 'O')

We block packets containing the following strings in the comment fields:

• NSM is Not Sonde Monitor
• SondeID
• Ozonesonde
• Recupero Radiosonde

We block packets from the following 'tocall' destinations:

• APHAX - SM2APRS Software
• APAT51 - Anytone AT-D578UV APRS mobile radios
• APRDR - APRSDroid
• APRARX - Old radiosonde_auto_rx versions
• OGFLR - Packets arriving via an Open Glider Network Gateway
• SONDA - Another kind of radiosonde gateway

We block packets with the following in their path:

• SONDEGATE - Radiosonde Gateways
• NOHUB - Use this if you want to send packets into APRS-IS that you don't want imported.

We block packets from the following source callsigns:

• Any source callsign containing WIDE, which usually indicates a corrupted packet.

We block packets where RSSI and SNR metadata has been added onto the end of the comment field. This is usually done by LoRa-APRS iGates, and causes issues with de-duping and speed calculations. If you are flying a payload which actually is reporting some valid RSSI or SNR data within the comment, please contact us!

Timestamps

The APRS-IS importer will parse and use timestamps included in APRS packets, e.g. the HHMMSSh format. Note that we assume that all timestamps are in UTC. If this is not the case, you may experience strange behaviour on the tracker!

Telemetry

Currently we do not support decoding APRS telemetry packets, though this may be added in the future.

There is some limited support for decoding telemetry from the comment field of the following APRS tracker models:

• High Altitude Science StratoTrack
  • Allowed Format: ,StrTrk,84,9,1.46V,-14C,2127Pa,
• WB8ELK SkyTracker
  • Allowed Format: 12 4.34 33 1991 101
• LightAPRS (Also works for LightAPRS LoRa software)
  • Allowed Format: 015TxC 29.00C 1019.86hPa 4.59V 06S Custom comment here
• RS41ng
  • Allowed Format: P6S7T29V2947C00 (Note - Voltage is in mV)
• RS41HUP-V2
  • Allowed Format: P809S8T-30V127 (Note - Voltage is in hundredths of a Volt)

Note that the telemetry must be exactly in the provided format, else parsing will fail.

If you would like support added for another tracker model, please contact us.

Chase-Car Positions

Chase cars can have their positions plotted on the SondeHub-Amateur tracker by adding SHUB or SHUB1-1 to their APRS path. Note that we do not support APRS chase car position uploading for the 'professional' (meteorological) SondeHub tracker.

Testing & Development

Create and enter a Python venv

$ python3 -m venv venv
$ . venv/bin/activate

Install dependencies:

$ pip install -r requirements.txt

Run with:

CALLSIGN=YOURCALL python -m sondehub_aprs_gw

This will run and output debug info, but will not upload to SondeHub unless the SNS environment variable is set.