Getting Started

Direbox is designed for ease of setup. If you purchased a prebuilt Direbox or a preloaded SD card, go ahead and skip down to Connecting.

For those who purchased a Direbox .img, there's some additional steps, so keep reading.

Download Direbox

If you've purchased Direbox as a Raspberry Pi image, you should receive an email with a license key. The latest Direbox image can be downloaded from the Download page. Simply input a valid license key to download your file.

If you purchased a Direbox image and didn't receive a license key email, please contact support.

Flash SD Card

Once you've downloaded the Direbox .img, you'll have to flash it to an SD card. We recommend using a minimum of a Class 10 SD card with a capacity of at least 16GB to ensure the messaging database has plenty of room to operate.

There are multiple options to write .img files to SD cards, but we'd recommend Balena Etcher as the easiest to use option.

Please note that Direbox does not support Raspberry Pi 5 or above at this time. If you're interested in seeing support for this model, drop us a line!

Connecting

After powering up your Direbox for the first time, it will float a WiFi access point for you to connect to. This first bootup may take some time as it generates your encryption keys and creates your messaging database.

The default Direbox access point name is Direbox with a password of dire1234. Once connected, you can access your Direbox instance from http://direbox:8097. If for some reason this alias doesn't work, you can also connect to Direbox via http://10.0.0.5:8097.

We recommend changing the default hotspot password via Settings > Hotspot for security purposes.

If you want to enable additional features on Direbox or access your instance from an Internet-connected access point, you can connect your Direbox to any hotspot of your choosing via Settings > Internet. If Direbox is within range of a saved access point, it will automatically connect to this network for access. If Direbox is out of range of any configured networks, it will float its own hotspot.

The direbox:8097 alias will work regardless of whether you're connected via hotspot or your network.

By default, Direbox assumes that your network is secure and uses HTTP, but HTTPS can be used instead via self-signed certificates. See System Settings for more details.

Plug In Radio

Once your initial configuration is done, it's time to start receiving packets!

All you need to do is connect Direbox to some kind of soundcard and a radio via USB. This can be as simple as a cheap Sabrent USB soundcard and a Baofeng HT or as advanced as a Digirig Mobile and a Kenwood, Yaesu, or Icom rig.

Packet radio works best with your SQL (squelch) off. For best reception, you may have to adjust the volume settings on your radio - we recommend starting with your volume knob turned to about 20%.

The first time you boot up Direbox, you may have to navigate to Settings > Detect Soundcard in order to start receiving packets. If Direbox doesn't detect your soundcard but it's plugged in, simply power cycle the device and try again.

Bear in mind that Direbox is only as good as the radio it's hooked up to. The better your soundcard and radio, the better your experience will be. Check out Required Hardware for recommendations.