APRS RX IGate with RTL-SDR and Raspberry Pi

Connect via SSH

I’m going to do the rest of the setup over SSH. The SSH client I use is the standard one for Windows, PuTTY. I can easily copy and paste between the PC and SSH clients.

The rest of the setup can be done on the Pi itself by running the commands in Terminal. To copy and paste on the Pi, open this post on the Pi itself using the browser.

The IP address of the Pi is needed so it can be connected to over the Local Area Network (LAN). There are many ways to do this including looking at the devices list or assigning a static IP address for the Pi; both happen in your router. In the end, two addresses will need to be assigned if installing the WiFi module, one for the wired Ethernet and the other for the wireless WiFi module. This varies greatly between router, firmware, setup, and it requires poking around in your router’s setup pages. Head on over to Google and search

[Router model or firmware] assign static ip address

In my setup, the Pi was assigned an address from my router.

aprs_rx_rtl-sdr_pi_igate-04_ssh-01_ip_address

On the Pi, click the Terminal icon. Type in

sudo ifconfig

This will display the configuration of your Ethernet devices. Sudo is the superuser (or root user) command in Linux.

Under “eth0,” Ethernet card 0, the second line will have “inet addr.” In this case: 192.168.3.146. This is the address that will be used to connect to the Pi over the network.

aprs_rx_rtl-sdr_pi_igate-04_ssh-02_putty_configuration

Start Putty.

For Host Name (or IP address), enter the IP address found above. In this case: 192.168.3.146.

Click Open.

aprs_rx_rtl-sdr_pi_igate-04_ssh-03_putty_security_alert

This is not a problem if you’re sure you’re connecting to the correct address.

Click Yes.

aprs_rx_rtl-sdr_pi_igate-04_ssh-04_putty_login

For the login, enter

pi

For password, enter password set in the Raspberry Pi Software Configuration Tool.

More bits

When using PuTTY, copying can be done in PuTTY by left-clicking and highlighting. Once the mouse button is released, the text is copied to the clipboard.

Pasting can be accomplished by copying text to the clipboard and then using the [SHIFT] + [INSERT] keys to paste in the PuTTY window. Right-clicking can also paste, but I’ve found the keyboard method more effective.