Missile Works RTx?

watermelonman said:

Heck I fly a fancy expensive GPS transmitter and I still lose signal upon landing out there. Great trick, as you get close to the last known coordinates, open up squelch and you can get a heartbeat even when there is not enough of a signal to decode APRS.

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The ground footprint is always going to be much less than what one can receive at altitude. Unless the rocket lands within sight, a 900Mhz GPS tracker one is going to lose the signal once it's down. If it's at Black Rock, the ground footprint has already been established to be zilch. Also if the rocket lands in a depression or a lower area with a ridge or obstructions, the ground footprint will be markedly less than if it's on open ground.

I run an APRS station to monitor signals on 144.390 and there is a "digipeater" 1400 feet away from me on a 90 foot tower. The digipeater will receive position packets and retransmit them. I have my H/T in the basement monitoring. I have heard (or I should say the digipeater has heard) high altitude balloons 425 statue miles away at 100,000 feet altitude.
Signal is heard at the 90 foot tower and retransmitted so that's how my H/T in the
basement can "hear" it.

The higher up you "hear" your last packet (for a given output power) the farther your rocket
is going to be away from you. As mentioned, one gets to the last known position and will likely receive a new position to take one to their rocket. If not, if one is tracking live on a map, following the drift trend seen on their map is likely going to lead to the ground footprint of the tracker and much joy will ensue. Kurt

Flew mine again today in a 38mm Go Devil today to about a mile on a AT I205. This pic is a screenshot of what I see walking to the rocket.
You see in the backround is the rocket and the left circle is the distance to the rocket. The circle in the middle has arrows showing which direction to rocket.

Here is a video of the flight. When the rocket touches down you will hear the Reciever change tones. Sorry for the shaky video.
[video]https://youtu.be/cjE5g_E__mI[/video]

bill2654 said:

Flew mine again today in a 38mm Go Devil today to about a mile on a AT I205. This pic is a screenshot of what I see walking to the rocket.
You see in the backround is the rocket and the left circle is the distance to the rocket. The circle in the middle has arrows showing which direction to rocket.
View attachment 303069

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bill2654 said:

Here is a video of the flight. When the rocket touches down you will hear the Reciever change tones. Sorry for the shaky video.
[video]https://youtu.be/cjE5g_E__mI[/video]

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SOLD....to the man with the credit card waiting!

I'm adding another vid of the recovery. I just filmed the last 500' or so. Yes it was a piece of cake to find the rocket because it was in plane sight BUT what if it was in 2' high soybeans?
I'm liking this thing more every time I use it. I cant wait till next spring to fly it hooked up with the RRC3.
[video]https://youtu.be/Gox-of8Z0Rk[/video]

This going to be like 100 moms at Walmart on Black Friday morning , aren't you glad this is internet purchase!

Nice video(s) and great flight, Bill!
This gives folks a view at how easy it is to locate a rocket with the "navigator" version.
No other handheld GPS or phone required.

Some additional info for those who have watched the video(s):

- The "low tone" you hear @ touchdown is the "packet sync loss" notification (all audio notifications are configurable)
- The LCD display was in default scroll mode (2 sec refresh), and can be paused on any screen (or there's a manual select mode)

Thanks Jim, I was going to try and explain what was being seen in the videos but I didn't want to say something wrong so I thought I'd wait till I had the manual in front of me.
I like that "low tone" telling me my rockets down. All you do the is just start walking in any direction really, and the LCD display will tell you with the arrows, <<left, >>right, /\/\straight ahead. It also give you a compass heading. I was going to pause the screen scolling and try to give a video explanation of some
of the many cool features on the different screens but I'll try to get better video and some more screen shots and explain what you're seeing better.

I love the notion of you putting together yet another video that illustrates any and all operational aspects of the RTx System (it's quite a feat juggling phone and Base unit while walking and narrating). I encourage all of the beta testers to post up flight results, pics, files, and/or videos for the community to review. Has Eric posted up his Balls flight on the forums?

I have about 5 flights on my RTx. I am using a 2S 450mA Lipo in tne TX and a 2S 300mA Lipo in the RX.
My results have been exceptional! Like Bill, the reciever walked me right to the rocket every time except conditions were such that I could see where my flights landed everytime. Here is Google earth image from last flight:

MWC said:

I love the notion of you putting together yet another video that illustrates any and all operational aspects of the RTx System (it's quite a feat juggling phon<script id="gpt-impl-0.49973988147547915" src="https://partner.googleadservices.com/gpt/pubads_impl_95.js"></script>e and Base unit while walking and narrating). I encourage all of the beta testers to post up flight results, pics, files, and/or videos for the community to review. Has Eric posted up his Balls flight on the forums?

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Hey Jim, Eric, others,

Sorry, finally back on the radar...been traveling all over and haven't had the time to decompress from XPRS yet!

In short, the RTx unit was astoundingly awesome on my flight at XPRS...thanks Watermelonman Eric for the photo! Instead of watching a motor burn, then losing complete track of the thing for some time without an inkling of what's going on, the base unit kept me informed of where it was at throughout ascent and descent. I could tell when it was ascending (obviously), when it roughly reached apogee, and could tell by the rate of descent that it was controlled as planned.

Original plan was to use an RTx in both a 4" booster and a 3" sustainer slated to fly over 120k'...an issue with the sustainer motor hardware prevented the two stage flight. So, in single stage, 4" configuration, she flew to 44,448'msl/40,544'agl and landed about 14,000' out from base camp. Being at Black Rock, we simply hopped in the van and drove off in the direction the RTx instructed us to go; it provided regular distance and heading feedback which allowed us to drive right to the rocket at 45mph! I was sold on this unit before I ever saw it in the wild, but this "proof of concept" flight makes me a believer. The unit is great...I cannot express how thrilled I am that Missileworks is offering this system at the price point and level of functionality they are! Thanks Jim!

Once I catch up a bit, I'll post a debrief from the flight in an old thread (Balls 22 Projects) in the HPR section.

Again, this RTx system rocks....I'm in love:wink:

timbucktoo said:

I have about 5 flights on my RTx. I am using a 2S 450mA Lipo in tne TX and a 2S 300mA Lipo in the RX.
My results have been exceptional! Like Bill, the reciever walked me right to the rocket every time except conditions were such that I could see where my flights landed everytime. Here is Google earth image from last flight:
View attachment 303138

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You're lucky. All my APRS flights were out of sight except one. The one that was seen under main, just before it touched down wasn't sending positions. All the others, about 12, were completely sight unseen. Get close to that last position and
the packets will start coming in again. (Except on the playa maybe) My NMEA experiences were one ballistic flight (Tracker died after one last position got out before it hit. Allowed me to dig out rocket, replace nosecone and tracker to fly again)
and one motor burn through. Of course neither of these events were the fault of the tracker.
I'm not flying the RTx but the enthusiasm of GPS locating of rockets is there no matter what device/system one is using. You fly stupid high and stupid fast, especially in a small rocket, you will have a completely sight unseen flight and that is where
a functioning GPS tracker will "really" pay off. If you have a live mapping solution you can see if it may be easier to drive on road to a place that is closer to the rockets resting place rather than hike in via direct line and have to deal with obstructions
like drainage ditches or creeks. Kurt

Thanks for posting, Eric & Tim & Bill... I'm hoping we'll have more folks chime in with flight results and overall user experience. I know there are flights planned for this weekend @ MDRA too.

I'll share some of my experience with the RTx tethered to an RRC3 after our next club launch. We have a launch scheduled this weekend but it will likely get pushed out a week because of the nasty weather blowing in for the weekend.

-brant

I'm planning on attending the MDRA sod farm launch on Sunday. Will be flying the RTx tethered to a RRC3.

Ben

I will be there on Saturday and flying with the RTx tethered to the RRC3.

This is another feature I thought I would share. This is during the descent there are a couple screens that will tell you where your rocket is (or where you should be looking).
The first one tells me the altitude and the rockets rate of descent, and the next screen will tell me which direction to look and how far the rocket is from me.
]

This will help a lot on those MD out of site rocket flights. At least you will know which direction you should be looking!

My first use was last weekend with a Broken Arrow XP on an AT L900DM to 10,000'. Had GPS lock throughout the flight and the LCD directional took me straight to the rocket. Wish the 3D printed case for the receiver LCD was in stock to replace the plastic anti-static bag I am using.

Thanks for posting, Dave! Everything looks great with this flight recording upload as well.
I have LCD cases now, so I'm going to go load them into the shopping cart.

MWC said:

I have LCD cases now, so I'm going to go load them into the shopping cart.

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Great! Just placed my order. No longer a bag man!

WoShuGui said:

Great! Just placed my order. No longer a bag man!

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LOL'd... can't have you as a bag man.
The case while a bit on the pricey side is a nice compliment to the system.

I flew my RTx system in my Madcow Sensor with a CTI K530SS to just over 4K ft, the image below is RTx track exported and shown in Google Earth.

bill2654 said:

This is another feature I thought I would share. This is during the descent there are a couple screens that will tell you where your rocket is (or where you should be looking).
The first one tells me the altitude and the rockets rate of descent, and the next screen will tell me which direction to look and how far the rocket is from me.
]View attachment 303258View attachment 303257

This will help a lot on those MD out of site rocket flights. At least you will know which direction you should be looking!

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One has to make sure that they have their orientation of the receiver correct otherwise they'll end up looking in the wrong direction. Easy mistake to make when one is excited. Get the hang of it and boy flying is more
enjoyable when one cuts their risk of a lost rocket. Kurt

Thanks for posting this in the RTx thread, Dennis!

ksaves2 said:

One has to make sure that they have their orientation of the receiver correct otherwise they'll end up looking in the wrong direction. Easy mistake to make when one is excited. Get the hang of it and boy flying is more
enjoyable when one cuts their risk of a lost rocket. Kurt

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What are you talking about?

timbucktoo said:

What are you talking about?

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What I am talking about is one needs to have the proper orientation to know were to look. If 0 is north 180 is south must keep that in mind. Sounds simple and rudimentary enough. Kurt

ksaves2 said:

What I am talking about is one needs to have the proper orientation to know were to look. If 0 is north 180 is south must keep that in mind. Sounds simple and rudimentary enough. Kurt

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Not sure if you have used an RTx yet but all you have to do is follow the arrow. N/S is irrelevant.

That's not entirely true. The north/ south is relevant. It gives you (in the) degrees, the direction that you need to be heading. The arrow is more of a guide to point you in the general direction. Either way, it would be pretty hard to be facing 180' the wrong way.

Having a sense of direction is helpful. I used a compass and it helped out

Dunno about that. The arrow is all I have ever used but then again all my recoveries have been visible so knowing where N/S is seems irrelevant.

timbucktoo said:

Dunno about that. The arrow is all I have ever used but then again all my recoveries have been visible so knowing where N/S is seems irrelevant.

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Yeah, I guess when you can see it, that makes everything pretty clear. My last flight was over 2 miles away and out of sight. The arrows were pointing straight up the road but as I got closer to it, the actual location was about a quarter mile off to the right. Again, the arrows work , but the actual number is an exact direction to head