Thursday, July 16, 2015

What can I do with the TP-Link TL-WR703N router? (APRS, SDR)

What can I do with the TP-Link TL-WR703N router? (APRS, SDR)



Basically this device is meant to be a little 3g travel router. You can plug in a 3g USB adapter and share that Internet connection to multiple devices over WIFI. It also supports Ethernet. It runs a Linux operating system so this opens up lost of Amateur Radio opportunities. So for $24 you can get a 400mhz Linux computer, with Ethernet, Wifi and USB ports and several GPIO pins.
This router is available from http://www.giga.co.za/ocart/index.php?route=product/product&path=99&product_id=150

1) SDR
Using a RTL-SDR dongle on TL-WR703n you can listing to Amateur radio frequencies.
If you’re running OpenWrt Barrier Breaker (i.e. trunk) you can install librtlsdr SDR dongle labraries
Here is the pre compiled applications
https://steve-m.de/projects/rtl-sdr/openwrt/packages/

2) APRS
This unit can be used to do APRS with external GPS unit.
More info how to make this router a (APRS) Igate go  to http://www.aprs4r.org/cgi-bin/trac.cgi/wiki/OpenWrtAPRS4RInstallation
The router is well documented http://wiki.openwrt.org/toh/tp-link/tl-wr703n/pcb