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Creating an APRS iGate with an RTL-SDR and Dire Wolf
It's possible to create an APRS iGate using a relatively cheap RTL-SDR “dongle”. As is common with SDRs they don't perform quite as well as a real radio, but they're a versatile tool that's worth having in the shack.
You'll need one with a Temperature Controlled Oscillator (TCXO) as the cheaper ones without drift too much for reliably decoding APRS. If you don't already have one I recommend the Nooelec NESDR SMArt. I also recommend avoiding the SMArtee version with it's inbuilt bias-tee unless you need one for a specific application.
Note that Dire Wolf also include their own detailed documentation here but below is a quick summary to get you started.
Installation
sudo apt-get install direwolf rtl-sdr
Configuration
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Usage
rtl_fm -f 144.8M - | direwolf -c direwolf.conf -r 24000 -D 1 -