At what point do you add a tracker?

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molten_dragon

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I'm currently working on a rocket and I'm wondering if I should use some kind of tracker. It's an Adventurer 3 kit from Rocketry Warehouse. I've got most of the work on the actual rocket done, but I can't seem to work up any enthusiasm for putting the electronics bay together. Part of the problem is that I intended to use the Eggfinder TRS I bought last year in it, but I hate soldering so it's not put together yet.

I was thinking maybe I'd just use my RRC2+ instead, and put together a second sled later with the Eggfinder.

OpenRocket shows about 10,000 feet with the biggest motor I'm likely to put in it, would you recommend a tracker at that point, or should it be okay without one?
 
If you fly at a launch site like Bong in WI. I use mine on every flight at the Bong. I have one so why not use it?
 
mostly due to the fact that your junk comes down in some type of working farm with healthy vegetation. Dual deploy only means you land in the closer heavily vegetated fields instead of the ones farther out. You are still going to have issues finding your junk without some sort of tracker. I suspect Michigan has similar issues. I can also tell you for a fact, once you fly with a tracker you are hard pressed to fly without one. I simply won't do it no matter of how high I plan on going. Better to have and not need than to need and not have.

On a side note, I will briefly recount my L2 flight. I was planning the flight go somewhere 7K and I had already worked out the bugs on my DD set up. Since the rocket was small (a Nuke ProMaxx) I took up a friends tracker offer and was glad I did. The thing tore off the pad and quickly shot out of sight. Nothing, no idea where and in what direction it went other than straight up. I was mortified to the point I was almost sick to my stomach. Rick Comshaw looked at me and said something to the effect, "well, let's go get it" and he put down what he was eating and started off across the field. About a mile and a half of bushwhacking later, I came up with my rocket that was laying partly in an irrigation ditch and partly in between rows of alfalfa. No way, repeat, NO WAY I would have know even where to look with out the tracker. Later I found out that the event worked nominally. I had a drougeless apogee at 7,736' followed by a main at 700'. The graph showed the main did indeed come out at 700' and not higher. I have no idea why it drifted so far unless the winds a loft where smoking. Who knows? Then and there I started saving for my tracker.
 
10,000 feet? - no way I'd launch that without a tracker.

As to what point do I use when deciding to use a tracker? - that's complicated.
It depends on a lot of factors, not least of which being - do I have a tracker available and will it fit in this rocket? Other things include: landing area (vegetation/terrain/etc.), wind and cloud conditions, how complex and/or expensive the rocket and components are, tracking smoke (or lack of it) for a particular motor, and certainly expected altitude.

On a clear day, with the sun NOT in a position that it might blind me, I can generally track a rocket visually up to 5000-7000 feet, sometimes higher. But there is no way I can guarantee it. And then, it can still be VERY easy to lose visual lock on the way down. So, even though I can probably get away without a tracker on a flight like this, I usually use one. And it's saved my rocket many times.
Most of the time, if I'm flying above about 2500', I'll use a tracker IF I've got one and it fits.

If it's cloudy - use a tracker. If it's really windy - use a tracker. If I've got a lot of expensive paraphernalia in the rocket - use a tracker. If the landing area is bushy or high relief - use a tracker. If the motor has little to no tracking smoke, and/or is very "fast" - use a tracker. If I've got a tracker just sitting there and it fits easily into the rocket - why not?, use the tracker.

All that said, I still fly the vast majority of my flights WITHOUT a tracker. That might sound surprising given what I said above, but there are other factors. First, I fly a lot under 2500'; most of these rockets are simple motor eject and I just want the simplicity of launch/recover/repeat. Second, even for flights of 2000'-4000' or so, most of the time I "know" where they are going to land, and once I start flying for the day I can generally keep an eye on things quite well. Lastly, a lot of the time I either don't have a tracker available, and/or the rocket won't fit or carry one easily. So, you certainly don't NEED a tracker to fly and have fun.

But it sure is nice to have when you do. And you WILL be glad someday when you recover that rocket that would have been lost otherwise (which is pretty much a guarantee).

s6
 
Unless it's under 2000' on a really calm day, I use a tracker on every flight anymore. GPS or RF, which one I use depends how much room I have. Trackers can be taped to any shock cord. Like Grouch says, "Better to have and not need than to need and not have."
 
Wish I had a tracker on my L1 flight. Only 1800ft, but landed in 5ft tall corn. Even with half a dozen spotters, all of whom clearly saw it all the way until landing not far away, and 4 of us walking the corn, it still took a good while to find it.

10,000ft? Yep, track it.
 
Track it. It's way too easy to lose sight of a rocket.

Depends on size, wind and landing area. But generally my line is around 2500/3000 feet on 3/4" rockets. I track everything I can though.

Make a nosecone bay fr that thing and you're set.
 
There are several different ways to track a rocket. First would be audible. Great for tall weeds or fields with crops. Next would be radio beacon technology. This is a little more complicated and there is a learning curve. you start using these when your rockets start going completely out of visual range. Next would be GPS or Satellite tracking. These are more expensive systems and are subject to anomalies associated with acquiring satellites and keeping lock. But as the technology progresses they are becoming more reliable. Most can be used as a radio beacon in case of GPS failure.

Hope this helps.
 
Tracking? Should depend on expected altitude and the size of the rocket. Large rocket going to 2500 feet? If you can see it through the flight, you stand a chance of getting it back as long as it lands out in the open.

You kick a small rocket up real high, there is that chance you may not see any of the deployment events at all. They can occur nominally and you won't know it because you can't see them and don't know where to look.

If you are expecting 10k you better get some sort of tracker onboard unless you want a single use rocket. Kurt
 
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Ok, so I built a Leviathan and a Ventris. Staying in the MPR range since I'm new to this hobby. Plan on flying F & G motors for a while. Is there a need to track these, or will I be able to see them? My father is a member of an RC airplane club and plan on launching there. Maybe 150 acres. Is that big enough?
 
On a side note, I will briefly recount my L2 flight. I was planning the flight go somewhere 7K and I had already worked out the bugs on my DD set up. Since the rocket was small (a Nuke ProMaxx) I took up a friends tracker offer and was glad I did. The thing tore off the pad and quickly shot out of sight. Nothing, no idea where and in what direction it went other than straight up. I was mortified to the point I was almost sick to my stomach. Rick Comshaw looked at me and said something to the effect, "well, let's go get it" and he put down what he was eating and started off across the field. About a mile and a half of bushwhacking later, I came up with my rocket that was laying partly in an irrigation ditch and partly in between rows of alfalfa. No way, repeat, NO WAY I would have know even where to look with out the tracker. Later I found out that the event worked nominally. I had a drougeless apogee at 7,736' followed by a main at 700'. The graph showed the main did indeed come out at 700' and not higher. I have no idea why it drifted so far unless the winds a loft where smoking. Who knows? Then and there I started saving for my tracker.

Your experience is not uncommon. I also suspect your estimate of 1.5 miles may be way off. From personal experience, many times I've thought I was 3/4 or a mile away and when I got back and measured it on the topo map, it turns out the landing site was about half the distance I thought it was. Bushwacking can make it seem like you've gone much further than you actually did. With that said, you can use google maps to measure the distance that the rocket actually drifted. It might not be quite as far as you thought, which means the apogee to main part of the flight and it's drift may be easily accounted for by wind speeds. The winds aloft can also do weird things. Right now the closest winds aloft forecast for my area says 14 mph @ 3K, 20 mph @ 6K, 18 mph @ 9K & 12K and 33 mph @ 18k and those cover about 40 deg. on the compass when it comes to direction. If all of that can't account for your drift, your fin can could have been "flying" That is when you go drogueless and the fin can ends up point the aft end downward about 20 - 30 degrees. The fins will act as wings and the fin can will go off in a random direction, dragging the payload with it. It will usually change directions and mitigate the effect, but not always. I've watched a rocket move almost as far south to north because of fin can flying as the eastern wind took it westward on it's way down. The worst case is when it flies in the direction the wind is going because that can make it land a lot further away then you might calculate.

With all of that said, to get back to the subject at hand, I would recommend use of a tracker of some sort if there is any chance of the rocket landing somewhere that you can't see it on the ground after landing. Our club launches on a farm when the crops aren't in so the fields are usually plowed, or corn stubble. Depending on wind, you can land quite a ways away and still see the rocket and chute on the ground. I use a tracker any time I suspect the rocket could land outside of visual range or in areas where there is significant ground cover. The decision really comes down to knowing your field and how rockets fly and recover in various conditions.

The previous advice about trackers, "if it fits, fly it" is really good advice.
 
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The best way to get your rocket to land in plain sight, right by the road is to put a tracker in it. Lesson learned over and over again at Airfest.
 
Ok, so I built a Leviathan and a Ventris. Staying in the MPR range since I'm new to this hobby. Plan on flying F & G motors for a while. Is there a need to track these, or will I be able to see them? My father is a member of an RC airplane club and plan on launching there. Maybe 150 acres. Is that big enough?

If it's wide open and you can see the descent, no tracker needed, especially if you are staying under 1000'.
 
To the OP, I sent up a 4" x 7' rocket to under 3000' recently. Due to leaving out my NC shear pins, it popped the main at apogee. Rocket drifted over some trees and disappeared.

Turns out it was fully recoverable, but I never would have found it if I didn't have my tracker in it. Had to drive to another farm, but there it was. Tracker led me to within 100' of it.
 
The answer to the OP's question is easy. If you want your rocket back put a tracker in it. Very, very rarely does someone lose a tracker. People lose rockets all the time.
 
Handeman's point should be well taken. I've been amazed at times because I've used GPS trackers and know exactly how far they go. 1/2 mile away with a small high flying rocket and one may not see a thing!!! Even with nominal events.

Also I've had the experience of monitoring GPS tracked rockets on a laptop map in real time and the gyrations a descending rocket makes with the winds aloft
are surprising. Even with a handheld mapping GPS that is plotting the descending rocket in realtime, I've yelled at the crowd (who's looking in the wrong direction based on the ground prevailing winds) to turn 120 degrees to where the tracker says it is. You go'in to 10k? You want it back? You better track it. Kurt
 
The answer to the OP's question is easy. If you want your rocket back put a tracker in it. Very, very rarely does someone lose a tracker. People lose rockets all the time.

I loaned a flyer my tracker today. He launches his rocket and takes off without the tracker receiver because he saw it come down. He comes back in half a hour and says, "I need to borrow your receiver, I can't find my rocket." Of course, I'm wondering why he didn't take the receiver in the first place, but he thought it was going to be an easy recovery. NOT!

After I give him the receiver, he comes back in 10 minutes with the rocket. "Duh!", I say.

The moral of this little parable: if you have AND USE a tracker it will save you time and lost rockets.

At our club, there are many guys who have receivers and will loan them to flyers to search for their rockets to who have bought their own transmitters. One found rocket that otherwise would have been lost pays for even the high-end RDF transmitters. One crazy trajectory or main-at-the-top deployment equipped with a proper tracker saves a lost rocket.

--Lance.
 
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Can anyone suggest a relatively inexpensive tracker for me to use in my MPR? Something that I can connect to my NC or shock cord.
 
At yesterday's launch, two friends told me they lost their rockets the day before and both had electronics/cameras/etc. in them...however no trackers. Time for me to get a tracker.

Of note is that the friendly fellow set up next to me showed me the dog collar gps tracker he uses...it was large, but seemed to work very well. Later, while we were waiting for our rockets to launch, he showed me how his handheld GPS tracking unit locates the rocket on the pad.
 
Can anyone suggest a relatively inexpensive tracker for me to use in my MPR? Something that I can connect to my NC or shock cord.

I'll second this. Jut now getting into MPR/HPR and would like to have something on a 'standard' sled that I can move from one rocket to another throughout the day.
 
Eggfinder is really cheap (around $100 for a setup with transmitter and receiver).

I don't mount it on a sled. I wrap it in a bunch of foam and throw it in the nose cone.

Survived a G106 in a small wildman kit. :)
 
The best way to get your rocket to land in plain sight, right by the road is to put a tracker in it. Lesson learned over and over again at Airfest.

Yup

Blew the mains at 9,300' @ LDRS this year. The GPS tracked right to where it landed about 500' feet from me and 50' in front of the flight line.
 
Millions of threads about this, but in summary--

RF trackers require a HAM license to operate.

Don't have/want a HAM license? You can use 900 MHz, the cell phone frequency. No license required. However, these are usually expensive! (For example, the BRB900 that I use is over $300.)

As mentioned, the EggFinder is a 900 MHz system for about $100. What's the catch? You have to solder it together; so you need to know how to solder circuit boards, diodes, resistors, etc.
 
I'll second this. Jut now getting into MPR/HPR and would like to have something on a 'standard' sled that I can move from one rocket to another throughout the day.

If you want extremely cheap try this: https://www.jbgizmo.com/index.html Read up on RDF tracking and test. I got about 1000 to 1200' range on the open ground with a Yagi antenna. Box it up and put on the shockcord.
If it's not what you want, can't go wrong with $15.00 to experiment and learn. Also read about Yagi antennas and attenuators.

If you move on to HPR, you cannot go wrong with an EggFinder and an EggFinder LCD. Take the time to get a Ham Radio Tech license and you get further options. That is really not necessary anymore but I went that route to a General License and it helped me learn about the ins and outs of tracking. RDF trackers can be very small for small projects. GPS trackers tell you right where it went and if the flight goes ballistic, you know where to look to pick up the pieces.
With RDF, you'll be less likely to get to the site of a catastrophic failure if you didn't see where it hit. For a nominal flight where the RDF tracker survives, you'll be able to home it once you get within radio range.
Kurt
 
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Millions of threads about this, but in summary--

RF trackers require a HAM license to operate.

Don't have/want a HAM license? You can use 900 MHz, the cell phone frequency. No license required. However, these are usually expensive! (For example, the BRB900 that I use is over $300.)

As mentioned, the EggFinder is a 900 MHz system for about $100. What's the catch? You have to solder it together; so you need to know how to solder circuit boards, diodes, resistors, etc.

The thing about Ham license is incorrect. I don't know anyone with the commercial Com-spec, Rocket Hunter, Marshall or Walston trackers who got a license just to use the tracker. Com-Spec would put one's callsign in their tracker
if it was in the ham band. Most of those devices were sold in a "grey area" and people were sold them, bought them and used them without a ham ticket. Since they weren't so widespread and were in the "wildlife tracking" 1.25m band
nobody did anything about it. There were a few Ham radio folks out there who were really PO'd about this. Kurt
 
A little correction to the above. I am a HAM and when I purchased my Marshall set up, I ordered it on 70cm. It spits out my callsign every ten minutes. No skirting the laws here. No pretending I am tracking wildlife. I am all cool with the Feds and that was an important consideration to me.
 
Yup

Blew the mains at 9,300' @ LDRS this year. The GPS tracked right to where it landed about 500' feet from me and 50' in front of the flight line.

Glad I wasn't the only one to do that ><

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