TRACKER Questions

[Jack Wainio]

Hello group,

I'm just starting to learn about APRS and the Digipi. I took the Digipi on a road trip. I have an AIOC and adaptor cable to an Icom  IC-299H at 25 Watts. I put a Hat on Digipi so I could connect a GPS . The trip was on Friday May 22. The call sign is: KC8QPG-2. I see my route in APRS.fi Map. What information can I interpret from the data on the Map? I had a HT to monitor when I heard transmissions 144.390.  It seemed that the Transmissions were at random time intervals. What criteria does Tracker use to send location updates? Can you adjust how often the Tracker updates? Looking at the Map I can see large areas when I was probably out of range of any Digipeater. Is there a way to improve on being received? Would increasing to 50 Watts help? Or with Line of Sight it's more about terrain than Wattage? 

Jack KC8QPG 

[Craig]

Hi Jack, that track looks really good to me, you have great aprs coverage in and
about Detroit.  I'm not sure I would change anything.

You can adjust the beacon interval in direwolf.tracker.conf which is currently
set to 5 minutes.  I think direwolf can do smart beaconing as well.


Shell
password: raspberry
sudo remount
sudo nano direwolf.tracker.conf

TBEACON delay=00:15 every=5:00 symbol="igate" overlay=T via=WIDE1-1 power=5 height=5 gain=3 comment="DigiPi igate/tracker http://digipi.org/"


The new DigiPi web chat interface will also do beacons, including smart beaconing (beta image)


cool,
-craig
KM6LYW

[Scott Sheppard]

I hate to admit it but I just skimmed the 

•Direwolf User Guide. 

I think is should be required reading for us all as many questions going to Craig are answered here. I admit it. I just skimmed all 117 pages or this well written doc and many of my questions are covered here. Just my 2 cents and I was unaware of it.  Sigh. 

Scott Sheppard

1702 Frazier Park Drive 

Decatur, GA 30033

732 861 3383 

sshe...@bellsouth.net

KJ4ZZB Call Sign

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[Edward Matarazzo]

I wasn’t aware of this but I’ll look at it thank you

Edward Matarazzo KE8GIM

---

From: 'Scott Sheppard' via DigiPi <dig...@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Sunday, May 24, 2026 2:13:48 PM
To: Craig <km6...@gmail.com>
Cc: Jack Wainio <kc8...@gmail.com>; DigiPi <dig...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: [DigiPi] TRACKER Questions

 

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/digipi/E765581B-7665-4E0B-B2B6-8FFF3CB7E0C5%40bellsouth.net.

[Craig]

The Direwolf user-guide is epic in scale, I don't expect everyone to read it, but
I fully encourage it.  Hopefully DigiPi makes it so it's not required reading :)

Direwolf is genuinely magnificent and I've been working with John (WB2OSZ) on
some exciting new features (bluetooth TNC anyone?) that are working here on the
workbench.

cool,
-craig
KM6LYW