Design of APRS Modem Using IC TCM3105 and ATMega2560 Microcontroller

TL;DR

This paper presents the design and development of a cost-effective APRS modem using TCM3105 IC and ATmega2560 microcontroller, enabling amateur radio operators in Indonesia to access APRS technology more easily.

Contribution

It introduces a new, affordable APRS modem design utilizing readily available components, with implementation of standard protocols and successful transmission and decoding of APRS packets.

Findings

APRS modem successfully transmits APRS packets

APRS packets are correctly received and decoded by ground stations

The design is cost-effective and easy to replicate

Abstract

APRS technology is still exists and still developing among amateur radio. However, in Indonesia there are still not many people who use and utilize APRS. The high price of APRS modem and difficulties of getting APRS modems is one of the factors affecting the public interest in APRS. In Indonesia, no one has developed APRS modem, so that our paper will be discuss about design and develop of APRS modem using cheap and easy components FSK modem IC TCM3105 and ATmega2560 as microcontroller. The implementation of APRS standard protocol on modem that has been made use C programming language on Arduino IDE and the schematic design and printed circuit board layout use Proteus 8. IC TCM3105 selection is based on the specification of eligible components of APRS device able to set the baud rate of 1200 bps with FSK modulation technique. The ATmega2560 microcontroller is chosen as the information signal encoding processor and calculate the CRC-16-X25 FCS (Frame Check Sequence) for the information packet according to the standard AX.25 UI Frame APRS protocol. AX.25 UI Frame APRS protocol consists of flag, destination address, source address, digipeater address, control field, protocol ID, information field and FCS. The result of this paper is APRS modem device that has been made can send the APRS information packet very well. This is proved by APRS packet that has been sent can be received and repeated by ground station of Pusteksat LAPAN also connected on APRS international network in aprs.fi. In addition, the information that has been sent from APRS modem can be decoded correctly by APRS software decoder such as Soundmodem, AFSK1200, dan AX.25-SCS.