What tracker do you use?

grouch said:

Personally I really enjoy the HAM RDF thing. I don't see myself ever wanting to get into GPS mostly because RDF is challenging and fun. I find it extremely rewarding to "hunt" my rockets down. Being told where they are just does not have the same appeal to me although I understand why it's popular. If that isn't enough, it seems so high tech in a 1960's sort of way.

Click to expand...

Yeah,

I can see that but unless you have a great venue, with great weather and lots of opportunities to fly, RDF doesn't promote expedient recovery so one can get their project and get back to fly more rockets period. I want it. I want it now and I want to be able to go on and fly the next one.
GPS tracking offers that much more than RDF tracking. If you wanna track a small project, RDF is the only way to go of course. I have several Yagi's with attenuators but looking on a handheld mapping GPS is just too darned easy. My recovered "sight unseen" rockets paid for
the APRS system I use in recovered hardware.

Wanna practice RDF? Build an el cheapo XFM-1 tracker and you'll get a 1200 foot radius roughly with a 3 element Yagi. Did not have to
even turn on the attenuator in flight. Got a very sharp bearing at a distance. Only had to turn on the attenuator when getting closer. But then again, I could already see the rocket on the ground. Kurt

Big Red Bee, 70cm GPS



Spectacular performance, and Greg gives amazing support.

All the best, James

Garmin GTU10 and BRB900...

grouch said:

Personally I really enjoy the HAM RDF thing. I don't see myself ever wanting to get into GPS mostly because RDF is challenging and fun. I find it extremely rewarding to "hunt" my rockets down. Being told where they are just does not have the same appeal to me although I understand why it's popular. If that isn't enough, it seems so high tech in a 1960's sort of way.

Click to expand...

LOL. RDF is rather retro-high tech. I get it, though. I get the same rush when using GPS and finding the rocket where it is supposed to be. The thrill of the hunt...

grouch said:

Personally I really enjoy the HAM RDF thing. I don't see myself ever wanting to get into GPS mostly because RDF is challenging and fun. I find it extremely rewarding to "hunt" my rockets down. Being told where they are just does not have the same appeal to me although I understand why it's popular. If that isn't enough, it seems so high tech in a 1960's sort of way.

Click to expand...

I'm in the same boat. I'm also leery of GPS, as the consumer grade devices are only precise to 3-5 meters. I've gotten that close to a rocket without finding it before. I think it's worth learning to DF the signal from a GPS tracker, just in case. The RF beacons also have a lower power consumption than the GPS units, so if you don;t find it the day you launched it, you can come back later.
I use a BRB RF beacon.

This is my Marshall receiver,





And the transmitter taped to a stick that I poke into the nosecone,

Jarrett,

What have you done to the antenna on the transmitter?

Chuck, since I use the transmitter on all my rockets, I needed a way of putting the TX in the nosecones easily and without and real refitting. I took a small 8" long piece of basswood and stuck a small loop of left over Kevlar to it. Then I tape the TX to the stick and tape it into a hole in the nosecone. I do this on all of my rockets whether zipperless like the Onyx or nosecone deploy. I use Gorilla tape to hold it and hold it it does. It actually holds the antenna straight up in the nose cone.

Jarrett,,
That's a really slick method...
I'd like to see that ,,,
Next launch...

Teddy

AIM XTRA from South Africa. Made by Entacore :https://entacore.com/electronics/aimxtra

onebadhawk said:

Jarrett,,
That's a really slick method...
I'd like to see that ,,,
Next launch...

Teddy

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Nooooooo......................

It's a "stick" method Teddy :wink::smile: Actually with a wire it's preferable to have it stay extended as opposed to getting scrunched down due to a variety of forces. Perhaps the inherent "stiffness" in the wire
is good enough but splinting or stenting it ensures it stays extended for optimal radiation. I have a wire antenna jutting through the forward bulkhead into the main chute bay of a project. I use the stiff cardboard tube
that AT igniters come in to stent the wire so the main chute doesn't smash the wire down under acceleration. I do one wrap of duct tape on the tube and that suppresses the flash from the charge going off. Hasn't started a fire yet. Space was too much as a premium, I couldn't do a formal bulkhead mounted antenna and just did a form fit hole to shove it through directly. Kurt

RadManCF said:

I'm in the same boat. I'm also leery of GPS, as the consumer grade devices are only precise to 3-5 meters. I've gotten that close to a rocket without finding it before.

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Geez. Your fear applies to probably less than 1% of all flights. 3 meters is pretty damn close. Most downed rockets are seen/heard well before 3 meters is reached.

Buckeye said:

Geez. Your fear applies to probably less than 1% of all flights. 3 meters is pretty damn close. Most downed rockets are seen/heard well before 3 meters is reached.

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Yeah, Know your venue. If you run a tracker and the beeper on the deployment electronics is "weak", you need to put a "screamer" on the shockcord. Whether one is using GPS or RDF, if lost in dense foliage the aural sound
will allow your ears to home in for the final pickup.

If in a harvested field, I've got my tracker icon to merge with the rocket's, if it's not there, I just turn and scan. It's usually a few feet away. Kurt

I have both a BRB 70cm rig and an EggFinder that I just bought.

JDcluster said:

Just curious to what others are using to track their rockets.
I use a few different ones:
GPS: Garmin Astro ( not lately)
GPS: Eggfinder TRS
RF: CSI
RF: Merlin Systems
Check all that apply.

JD

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I have been using the AP510 2M GPS transmitter for $130 and it's the best tracker I have ever had, period!
I used the Byonics MT-400 2M GPS transmitter as well, also perfect reliability in my rockets.

John

Tetrahedron said:

I have been using the AP510 2M GPS transmitter for $130 and it's the best tracker I have ever had, period!
I used the Byonics MT-400 2M GPS transmitter as well, also perfect reliability in my rockets.

John

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Cool John,

No interference with your deployment electronics? What altimeters you use? The MT400 is ~400mW and the AP510 is 500mW to 1 watt output. Both are in the 2 meter ham band and would lend themselves to larger rockets 3" or >
I'd expect. Get two AP510's and use one as a receiver bonded to an Android device for a map. The 510 is a transceiver tracker. Oh, both are frequency agile in the 144-148Mhz band.
You mount them in the nosecone? Kurt

ksaves2 said:

Cool John,

No interference with your deployment electronics? What altimeters you use? The MT400 is ~400mW and the AP510 is 500mW to 1 watt output.
Both are in the 2 meter ham band and would lend themselves to larger rockets 3" or >I'd expect.
Get two AP510's and use one as a receiver bonded to an Android device for a map. The 510 is a transceiver tracker. Oh, both are frequency agile in the 144-148Mhz band.
You mount them in the nosecone? Kurt

Click to expand...

No interference here. I mount these in the nose cone and I have flown them with the ARTS2, Adept22, Adept ALTS25, Stratologger and no problem on the dual deployment.
These were all 4"+ diameter but it will fit in 3" nose cones also.
I lined the inside of the altimeter compartment with aluminum tape to make a Faraday cage just to be sure (but I also flew a rocket without it and it was no problem).
I use my Kenwood DM-710A and feed the audio to my laptop running MixW which displays the GPS coordinates and other APRS text (this is displayed on the Kenwood also since it has APRS).
I have seen on youtube some using a cell phone or tablet with APRSdroid app installed and then feed the audio to the smart phone or tablet. Then use the app to get maps of the location of the AP510 etc.
I have problems getting an audio cable working with my Samsung cell phone or tablet, if I wiggled the audio cable sometimes it shows up on the screen. The cell and tablet uses 3-4 segment audio plugs
and it's hard to get something compatible.

John

Tetrahedron said:

No interference here. I mount these in the nose cone and I have flown them with the ARTS2, Adept22, Adept ALTS25, Stratologger and no problem on the dual deployment.
These were all 4"+ diameter but it will fit in 3" nose cones also.
I lined the inside of the altimeter compartment with aluminum tape to make a Faraday cage just to be sure (but I also flew a rocket without it and it was no problem).
I use my Kenwood DM-710A and feed the audio to my laptop running MixW which displays the GPS coordinates and other APRS text (this is displayed on the Kenwood also since it has APRS).
I have seen on youtube some using a cell phone or tablet with APRSdroid app installed and then feed the audio to the smart phone or tablet. Then use the app to get maps of the location of the AP510 etc.
I have problems getting an audio cable working with my Samsung cell phone or tablet, if I wiggled the audio cable sometimes it shows up on the screen. The cell and tablet uses 3-4 segment audio plugs
and it's hard to get something compatible.

John

Click to expand...

Ok, Thanks. You can get a second AP510, bond it to your Android device/phone and use APRS Droid. Only problem with APRS Droid, I find I have to transmit a packet in order to get my receive station icon to move. It's a nuisance but workable. Just make tracks towards the rocket (I set mine to use a rocket icon) and transmit my position every now and then so I'm sure I'm on the line. Another way would be with a Mobilinkd TNC: https://www.mobilinkd.com/ with your own H/T if you don't want to get another AP510. The Mobilinkd has a potential problem of screwing up the decoding if you accidentally hit the volume control on your H/T.

Alternatively, a D72A or VX8GR with a single wire cable to a Garmin 60Cs or 60 CsX will get you totally automatic tracking. Your position on the map moves in realtime towards the rocket. Plus, you lock the 60CsX to the rocket while it's on the pad. Set the Garmin to "navigate to" the rocket waypoint and it stays locked in as long as the packets are coming in. The used Garmin 60CsX's are reasonable. I picked up one for $170.00 and the prior owner said he only used it twice.
He was likely truthful as it had an old firmware I updated and I used free open source maps. Wasn't a mark on it. For APRS tracking, the two components are very portable. If I'm inclined the day I fly, I leave the laptop in the car with an external antenna and use a tracking program to record most of the flight for posterity. If I just want to find the danged thing, I use the D72A and Garmin.

The 60CsX has a sight 'n go feature that is great to shoot a line to a descending rocket when you have a visual. You sight the rocket between two points on the face of the GPS, push a button and it will lock a datum line so if you have to detour around something, it will take you to the distant point you sighted. It has worked for me many times with smaller rockets landing at a distance that don't have trackers. Kurt

Buckeye said:

Geez. Your fear applies to probably less than 1% of all flights. 3 meters is pretty damn close. Most downed rockets are seen/heard well before 3 meters is reached.

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In my neck of the woods the likelihood is somewhat higher. I'm getting back into things after drifting away for a couple years, but the club I previously flew with flew at a sod farm surrounded by farm fields, with irrigation ditches running through the sod fields, and random patches of bushes between the sod fields and the farm fields. It's the bushes that cause problems.