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LightAPRS is the most affordable, smallest, lightest, powerful and one of few open source APRS trackers available. It makes tracking pico balloons, weather balloons, model rockets, RC aircraft, and anything else that flies simple and easy. It is able to report location, altitude, temperature and pressure to the internet (APRS-IS) or direct to an amateur radio once a minute with a solar panel/super capacitors or just 4xAAA batteries. Because LightAPRS is open source you can add your own custom sensors via I2C/SPI pins. 

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$115

NOTE: This is the APRS-only version of the LightAPRS tracker. If you want the APRS+WSPR version, please see http://qrp-labs.com/lightaprs-w 

Information, source code

Official information and source code is on GITHUB: https://github.com/lightaprs/LightAPRS-1.0 


Key Features


Basic Features


Comparison with other APRS trackers

    LightAPRS   Tracksoar   PicoAPRS Lite
Weight   8 grams   45 grams   7 grams  
Frequency Agile   Yes (134-174 Mhz)   No   Yes (134-174 Mhz)
Transmit Power   1W   300mW   1W
Softare   Open Source   Open Source   Proprietary
Sensors Included   Temperature, Pressure   Temperature, Pressure, Humidity   Temperature, Pressure
Extendable   I2C, SPI, GPIO   I2C, SPI, GPIO   No
Price   100$   205$   157$


Photos

lightaprs-arduino-source.png lightaprs-back.jpg lightaprs-front.jpg

lightaprs-picoballoon-flight.jpg lightaprs-pinout.JPG weight.jpg


History

Three years ago I was googling about high altitude balloons and I ended up with QRP Labs Balloon Flights page :) I was really impressed with Dave's (VE3KCL) efforts to circumnavigate around the world with party balloons and track them.

Six months later I got my amateur radio license and started flights with heavy APRS trackers. Since payload is very heavy, balloons maximum altitude never exceeded 9.000 meters.

Last year my friend Hakki (TA9OHC) said me "I can design and assembly a lightweight APRS tracker" and I said to him "Let's do it, but we should keep it simple, useful and user friendly". After one year hard working and testing "LightAPRS Tracker" is ready for launch :) And I don't know if it's a quirk of fate, I realised that Hans is living in my country and very close to my moms town :) I visited him and mentioned about our project and decided to collaborate.

Mustafa Tan
TA2MUN
https://picoballoon.ist


Pico-balloon launch by Brian N6CVO

See http://www.qrp-labs.com/lightaprs/n6cvo11.html for details