Arduino KISS TNC

Inspired by [1] I recently setup a quick and dirty version of a KISS TNC to be used with Xastir for APRS position reporting. The harware consists of an Arduino nano Board and a few external parts. Altogether this solution costs about 5€. The Arduino is a simple clone with ATmega 328P and some USB-RS232 Chip from China.

I put the components together on a small bread board in order to test. A similar schematic with PTT LED can be found under [2] by the way. After finishing the circuit I programmed the software of the Arduino with an USBASP programmer for Atmel microprocessors. The circuit worked like a charm straightaway.

On a serial terminal I could see the AX.25 raw data. So I configured Xastir with a KISS TNC and could decode the received APRS packets. Transmitting also works without problem. The TX-delay requires some fine tuning however. Next I will try this low-cost TNC on a Raspberry Pi.

A second test on Flexnet under a Windows also showed the TNC working. So it can be used with UI-View and/or AGW-Packet Engine for example. For setup with AGW-Packet Engine see [2].

The circuit on the bread board
The circuit on the bread board
The Arduino TNC with Flexnet
The Arduino TNC with Flexnet
Raw data in minicom
Raw data in minicom

References

[1] http://www.mobilinkd.com/2014/09/11/arduino-kiss-tnc/
[2] http://www.m0pzt.com/blog/arduino-kiss-tnc/