🛠️MATERIALS NEEDED
ATAK comes with a PDF of how to use it. I suggest reading it, as there is a lot of stuff that I do not cover in this guide that may help you
ANDROID PHONE
if you have an Iphone, dont even bother. ITAK is a piece of garbage and shouldnt exist
If you cannot afford a new phone, they can be found super cheap on ebay. I have tested ATAK on many different samsungs, and even the palm phone (look it up, its hilarious).
The absolute gold standard, and what I use (therefore what this guide is intended for) is a google pixel phone with GrapheneOS rooted onto it. Because of this, compatability is not guaranteed with any other phone, although it may work with or without tinkering on your part. Rooting Graphene is super easy to do, and if you already have a pixel, there is no reason to not use graphene with it. The pixel 5 is the best, as juggernaut makes a phone case for it to mount to your armor. I cannot account for any other phone.
The cheapest reliable option is a cheap samsung galaxy s8. be aware that older versions of android are super insecure, the battery sucks, and its an old phone. not bad to play around on and learn how it all works before putting it on something more substantial
Bonus points if you go to the grocery store and buy a simcard with cash wearing a mask and a bernie sanders hat to obfuscate your identity. mint mobile has a year of unlimited data for i think 300 dollars
SOFTWARE (excluding ATAK)
Your Phone must have a VPN on it. If you do not have a VPN, do not proceed. Dont even bother. If you follow my guide, you may be breaking the licensing agreement to the various maps you will be streaming, and if you do that without a VPN, lawyers may end up at your door. just dont. The absolute gold standard for VPNs is Mullvad, but proton is another good choice.
FDROID REPOSITORY (droidify)
this is where you will download things such as meshtastic, signal, protonvpn or mullvad, free OTP, etc etc
https://f-droid.org/en/packages/com.looker.droidify/SIGNAL MESSENGER
this is not necessary for ATAK itself, but for the love of god stop sending messages over SMS or using things like whatsapp (owned by facebook). its an encrypted messenging service that has been called to court many times. they only data they keep is when you made the account, your phone number, and the last time you used it.
https://signal.org/en/FREETAKSERVER
this is the server that handles all of the "cot" (cursor on target) data for ATAK. basically when you send a message or drop a pin/draw on the map, it will update to everyone else on the server. This is also how locations of team members are handled.
https://github.com/FreeTAKTeam/FreeTakServerDIGITAL OCEAN
this is just a cloud server where you will actually be hosting your server. you can use any linux cloud hosting service, but this one is cheap and works great. oh yes, you are going to learn a tiny bit of linux while you do this (I HAD TO LEARN A LOT OKAY?? WHEN I STARTED YOU HAD TO BUILD YOUR OWN SERVER LINE BY LINE)
https://www.digitalocean.com/MESHTASTIC
this is for use with mesh radios. If you are not going to be using those, you do not need this app. use the version I have on my proton drive below for known compatability
work in progress. for now, you can play with meshtastic
app below
https://github.com/meshtastic/Meshtastic-Androidradios (find your own. I got a ton for cheap buying in bulk from china)
https://search.brave.com/search?q=tbeam+radio&source=desktopATAK
Before you proceed, YOU MUST USE A VPN, you must also make a choice. lie on a government form (based), or give them your information. you will get ATAK either way, but I have to legally tell you that you should not make a protonmail account and give them fake information
TAK.GOV
make an account, click yes that you are a US citizen (lol), and then open the verification link.
fill out your info
you will now have to authenticate. open free OTP to authenticate. youll just take a photo and then type in the numbers that pop up
go to products, ATAK, and then download 4.7
[also download 4.8 and all wanted plugins just in case]
It is possible to copy the ATAK APK (APKs are android apps) as many times as you want, although for legal reasons I have to say do this at your own risk
PLUGINS
ATAK FORWARDER
this is what sends the CoT data from ATAK to meshtastic so you can use mesh radios. can be downloaded from my proton drive here
// Some codeHAMMER, UAS TOOL, DATA SYNC
These are all installed from the tak.gov website as APK files
PHYSICAL/VIRTUAL STORAGE
All of the apps you download should be put in a folder on a flash drive for easy installation onto other phones. There are many usb adapters out there to plug a flash drive directly into your phone. buy several. Also buy several flash drives. The drives themselves need to be formatted to exfat
some drives just will not work with some phones. too bad, so sad, youll have to have multiple ones and use multiple phones to download some maps. no idea why
Your downloaded maps shall also be organized into folders on your flash drive, backed up to a hard drive, and also backed up to some sort of cloud service. Proton Drive is a good cloud service.
Last updated