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https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1250163085/tracksoar-aprs looks interesting. Puts position and environmental data onto the ham 2m APRS network.
I do not know how the aprs.fi works. lets say after landing the APRS transmitter isn't able to hit a repeater, will the last fix of the APRS station persist on the tracking website or will it dissapear?
The coolest thing about the traksoar is that it uses the standard APRS 2m data frequency so that the data goes onto the WWW.
You can do that with the 2m BeelineGPS, of course. But the traksoar integrates environmental sensors that the BeelineGPS lacks.
I like (and own) the Altus Metrum products, but there is not an equivalent mesh on the 70cm band.
And the closest non-ham equivalents all depend upon the, still sparse in some locations, cellphone network. Granted, cell network coverage is likely to become pervasive. But we aren't there yet...
Well, since it is open source I think there may be an opportunity for some custom coding.
For example the unit comes with a baro sensor. You could program a scenario where you more frequently transmit location packets on the descent as you get closer to the ground to get a track in case of lost signal upon landing. After landing you do not have to transmit any more packets. That should keep the APRS police happy don't you think?
Exactly. You can send beacons as often as you want, just not on the 144.390MHz packet network.I'd tune it to 144.800, something off the national frequency so's not to clog the APRS-IS network and jerk the 'ire of the APRS police.With 1 watt output, wouldn't need the network for backup tracking.
This is referred to as "Smart Beaconing". The shortest beacon interval is recommended to be at least 1 minute. Don't forget that you are sharing this resource with everyone else using APRS in your area.
Full document hereSo if X-Digi sees a packet with the same source and destination address and the same contents within the time
period specified by dupetime, it will not diigipeat it. Because this timer is set in increments of 5 seconds,
a value of 6, for example, will result in a 30 second duplicate checking period. Do not set this value
higher than about 24 (2 minutes). Setting the dupe value to 0 turns off dupe checking.
It looks like the digipeater setting that affects how often you can expect your position packets to be repeated is called DUPETIME. It's setting is up to the operator of the digipeater. In the past the recomended setting was 30 seconds but can be turned off if the operator desires.
Full document here
I wondered the same thing. I'm not sure. It could be the only way to know would be to try it and see.In the case of a descending rocket the contents of the packet won't be the same so it would repeat it?
Looks like the kickstarter failed, but you can still make a purchase at their web-site? So what was the point of the kickstarter?
Perhaps I should start one I often wonder what the whole point of these kickstarter campaigns is........
Greg K7RKT TRA 7960
Looks like the kickstarter failed, but you can still make a purchase at their web-site? So what was the point of the kickstarter?
Perhaps I should start one I often wonder what the whole point of these kickstarter campaigns is........
Greg K7RKT TRA 7960
Free market research?
I am been in communication with Bales (the project guy) on this project. The default code uses only about 1/2 the available program space. It has the Arduino bootloader so there is alot of room for customization of the operation. For rocket recovery duty you can program it just to transmit at near ground altitudes on descent then shut off. This device (at least on 144.390) is not the device for high frequency data transmission.
PS. I ordered one.
The Tracksoar default transmitter is 300mw.
I wasn't suggesting stop transmitting when on the ground, just set the update at a courtesy rate of 1 minute per update. While in the air use the Tracksoar pressure sensor to make sure to get some packets out while still in the air but reasonable close to the ground just to get some fixes on the APRS network.
Also interestingly, the Tracksoar has an integrated Baro sensor, some free output pins and healthy program memory left. It wouldn't be too hard to turn it into a dual-deploy altimeter in addition to the APRS transmitter........
It's the smallest I've seen out there forsale. I wonder if one can connect it easily to a computer to reprogram?
It's really a plus if a person is trying to send a small, 38mm MD rocket to extreme altitudes to have an exact idea of the position. Those things have a tendency to disappear for the entire flight. Kurt Savegnago
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