Cellular reception at lauch sites?

I know we have reception at ours. I was wondering if others do as well? I have tossed around building a cell based GPS tracker, but I'm not sure how useful it would be to others. It would have to be GSM based, so AT&T and TMobile are the only nationwide ones I can think of off the top of my head.

Would anyone be interested in such a thing? It would cost more than a beeline + receiver, but probably less than the full on Beeline GPS kit with the fancy handheld receiver to decode the position data, and no Ham license to worry about. The user would have to provide SIM cards from their carrier with active accounts. SMS is probably the easiest way to send position data back. I could even make a kit with a nice receiver and GPS to use to track the rocket down.

Something like this?

https://www.globalsat.com.tw/eng/product_detail_00000031.htm

Something like that, yes. I'm still leaning toward ham radio stuff though, it's just more likely to work in any given field.

ttabbal said:

Something like that, yes. I'm still leaning toward ham radio stuff though, it's just more likely to work in any given field.

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Do ya remember the thread about the guy down in New Zealand that was trying for an altitude record with a rather large rocket and lost it because his tracker, which was also cell phone based, couldn't get a reliable signal? I'm not going to have that problem this weekend with my little BigRedBee and my HT/Arrow antenna combo, no siree.

n5wd said:

Do ya remember the thread about the guy down in New Zealand that was trying for an altitude record with a rather large rocket and lost it because his tracker, which was also cell phone based, couldn't get a reliable signal? I'm not going to have that problem this weekend with my little BigRedBee and my HT/Arrow antenna combo, no siree.

Click to expand...

That's where I've been going with it as well. Ham stuff is simpler and can be more powerful if you're willing to lose a little battery life. Nothing wrong with the Bee and the Arrow. I own a set myself. It's served me well. I just like to contemplate projects.