Trackers and Altimeters Together

Hi all, I know this is an issue that has been brought up a little bit before, and I'm looking for some opinions. I'm working on a 3" and a 4" AV bay, and finally having so much room to play with after working mostly with 38mm and 54mm bays is such a pleasure. With all the extra room, I should be able to mount, especially in the 4" sled(s), redundant electronics as well as a tracker. I've ordered a Beeline 16mW transmitter with the wire antenna, and I'm currently using an RRC2+, and plan to add an RRC3 in the near future. Has anyone experienced problems with this setup? Anything in particular to be wary of? I have made a tracker bay a la John Coker (Thanks John!!) for the NC of the 3" rocket, a Madcow Aerobee Hi, in part for practice, so I do have that available to me. Thanks in advance for your help!

Nate

I would recommend testing on the ground to ensure that the all work together. You could add some shielding if you run into a problem. I would let everything run for a good bit to ensure the igniters don't pop and that the altimeter doesn't reset. I would also look to see if I could build a test chamber to hold the entire sled just to be sure.

After ground testing, run a simple test flight for a low altitude with motor ejection. Set up deployment charges to create "dummy" events. Arm all your electronics and launch. Watch the flight. Are all events happening correctly? Is the tracker responding? Is the rocket located where the tracker says it is? Is the reported altitude correct? Did all the deployment charges burn? If the answer is yes to all these, then your configuration is good to go.

I had the same concerns with my PF MAWD and BRB900 and did all of the above. They now now live peacefully together in the same av-bay with no conflicts. I really like the good ol' MAWD and have 3 of them. I question its altitude accuracy at times, but the robustness and compatibility are great.

The Adept 22, P6K and the AIM 2.0 USB all have issues with Rf. (The AIM advises that in their instruction manual.) Test like mentioned above and you stand a very good chance of success. I have multiple flights with a BLGPS riding in the same bay as a MAWD and another setup with a Raven 2 without problems. Move up to the higher powered BLGPS and I'd test it out like crazy even if the tracker was mounted in the nosecone. Kurt

Thanks for the suggestions guys. I got my tracker yesterday and played around with it and the altimeter. I actually can't confirm its transmitting, as I don't have any receiving gear yet, but it seems to be working fine with the laptop interface. There was no discernable interference with the rrc2+ during power up or continuity beeping, but I havent put it through a mayo jar flight yet.