Dire Wolf

Decoded Information from Radio Emissions for Windows Or Linux Fans

In the early days of Amateur Packet Radio, it was necessary to use an expensive “Terminal Node Controller” (TNC) with specialized hardware. Those days are gone. You can now get better results at lower cost by connecting your radio to the “soundcard” interface of a computer and using software to decode the signals.

Dire Wolf is a software "soundcard" modem/TNC and APRS encoder/decoder. It can be used stand-alone to observe APRS traffic, as a digipeater, APRStt gateway, or Internet Gateway (IGate). It can also be used as a virtual TNC for other applications such as APRSIS32, UI-View32, Xastir, APRS-TW, YAAC, UISS, Linux AX25, SARTrack, RMS Express, BPQ32, Outpost PM and many others.

Features & Benefits

• Lower cost, higher performance alternative to hardware TNC. Decodes more than 1000 error-free frames from WA8LMF TNC Test CD.

• Ideal for building a Raspberry Pi digipeater & IGate.

• Data rates: 300 AFSK, 1200 AFSK, 2400 QPSK, 4800 8PSK, and 9600/19200/38400 bps K9NG/G3RUH.

• Interface with applications by - AGW network protocol - KISS serial port - KISS TCP network protocol

• Decoding of received information for troubleshooting.

• Conversion from APRS to waypoint sentences in popular formats: $GPWPL, $PGRMW, $PMGNWPL, $PKWDWPL.

• Logging and conversion to GPX file format.

• Beaconing for yourself or other nearby entities.

• Very flexible Digipeating with routing and filtering between up to 6 ports.

• APRStt gateway - converts touch tone sequences to APRS objects and voice responses.

• APRS Internet Gateway (IGate) with IPv6 support and special SATGate mode.

• APRS Telemetry Toolkit.

• Compatible with software defined radios (SDR) such as gqrx, rtl_fm, and SDR#.

• Includes separate raw packet decoder, decode_aprs.

• AX.25 v2.2 connected mode. (New in version 1.4.)

• Open source so you can see how it works and make your own modifications.

• Runs in 3 different environments: - Microsoft Windows XP or later - Linux, regular PC/laptop or single board computer such as Raspberry Pi, BeagleBone Black, cubieboard 2, or C.H.I.P. - Mac OS X

Documentation

Stable Version

Latest Development Version

Installation

Windows

Go to the releases page. Download a zip file with "win" in its name, unzip it, and run direwolf.exe from a command window.

For more details see the User Guide in the doc directory.

Linux - Using git clone (recommended)

cd ~
git clone https://www.github.com/wb2osz/direwolf
cd direwolf
make
sudo make install
make install-conf

This should give you the most recent stable release. If you want the latest (possibly unstable) development version, use "git checkout dev" before the first "make" command.

For more details see the User Guide in the doc directory. Special considerations for the Raspberry Pi are found in Raspberry-Pi-APRS.pdf

Linux - Using apt-get (Debian flavor operating systems)

Results will vary depending on your hardware platform and operating system version because it depends on various volunteers who perform the packaging.

sudo apt-get update
apt-cache showpkg direwolf
sudo apt-get install direwolf

Linux - Using yum (Red Hat flavor operating systems)

Results will vary depending on your hardware platform and operating system version because it depends on various volunteers who perform the packaging.

sudo yum check-update
sudo yum list direwolf
sudo yum install direwolf

Linux - Download source in tar or zip file

Go to the releases page. Chose desired release and download the source as zip or compressed tar file. Unpack the files, with "unzip" or "tar xfz," and then:

cd direwolf-*
make
sudo make install
make install-conf

For more details see the User Guide in the doc directory. Special considerations for the Raspberry Pi are found in Raspberry-Pi-APRS.pdf

Join the conversation

Here are some good places to ask questions and share your experience:

• Dire Wolf packet TNC

• Raspberry Pi 4 Ham Radio

• linuxham

• TAPR aprssig

The github "issues" section is for reporting software defects and enhancement requests. It is NOT a place to ask questions or have general discussions. Please use one of the locations above.