Eggfinder -> VisualGPS -> Google Earth

I am trying to take the flight data I recorded yesterday and convert it into a .kml file to view in Google Earth.

I have an Eggfinder and I use VisualGPS to monitor the flight. Prior to launch I selected the "Record NMEA" tab and selected "start" (prompting me to give the file a name, which I did). After the rocket landed, I selected "stop" from the same tab. The file it created is attached here as a text file.
View attachment frenzy-J415W.txt

I then ran it through GPSVisualizer to create this .kml file.
View attachment Fenzy-J415W-20140727.kml

The results are kind of odd to me and I'd like it if someone could take a look and see where I went wrong.

Thanks
-Chuck

I renamed the .txt file to .nmea and opened it up in Google Earth, looks fine to me... maybe it's the conversion to .kml that's the issue.

Well dang it. That worked. Here I am trying to make things more complicated then they need to be.
Thanks Cris!

And it also explains why the GPS coordinates were so far off when I went to look for the rocket.
It looks like the last signal I received to the base station (my laptop) was when the rocket was at 1,737ft AGL. When we went out there the rocket was nowhere to be found. I want back to camp and came back out with the laptop (drove it out in a car actually). When we started picking up the signal again, I entered this new coordinate into my phone and walked right to it.

I'm going to need to investigate getting a handheld receiver.

Chuck:

That's what happened to me too at Eagle Eye, same kind of terrain. Once I got the laptop out there and got the real coordinates, I walked right up to the rocket.

I started working on the LCD receiver the next day...

Cris

chuck5395 said:

And it also explains why the GPS coordinates were so far off when I went to look for the rocket.
It looks like the last signal I received to the base station (my laptop) was when the rocket was at 6,274ft. When we went out there the rocket was nowhere to be found. I want back to camp and came back out with the laptop (drove it out in a car actually). When we started picking up the signal again, I entered this new coordinate into my phone and walked right to it.

I'm going to need to investigate getting a handheld receiver.

Click to expand...

chuck5395 said:

And it also explains why the GPS coordinates were so far off when I went to look for the rocket.
It looks like the last signal I received to the base station (my laptop) was when the rocket was at 1,737ft AGL. When we went out there the rocket was nowhere to be found. I want back to camp and came back out with the laptop (drove it out in a car actually). When we started picking up the signal again, I entered this new coordinate into my phone and walked right to it.

I'm going to need to investigate getting a handheld receiver.

Click to expand...

That explains it. Nice to know!

Another option is the APRS tracking program Xastir can save the incoming NMEA packets directly. The program is geared toward APRS but the EF receiver can be
plugged in as the "station" GPS and can track itself. The EF USB receiver is perfect for this. Unfortunately the learning curve is steep so if one can find a Ham nearby that uses the program, could get some help there. Kurt

That's great Kurt. While I have a HAM license, I am not versed in that application but I'll give it a look.
Thank you.

chuck5395 said:

And it also explains why the GPS coordinates were so far off when I went to look for the rocket.
It looks like the last signal I received to the base station (my laptop) was when the rocket was at 1,737ft AGL. When we went out there the rocket was nowhere to be found. I want back to camp and came back out with the laptop (drove it out in a car actually). When we started picking up the signal again, I entered this new coordinate into my phone and walked right to it.

I'm going to need to investigate getting a handheld receiver.

Click to expand...

That's the limitation using a base station to manually input coordinates to a handheld mapping GPS. One gets the "last received" packet. Depending on how far the rocket is from the base station, the final resting spot might be some distance away. Getting the EF LCD so one can carry it with them, is perfect as one stands a chance of re-acquiring a new packet when they get to the general landing area. No rocket? Just input the new packet information into one's handheld mapping GPS and one is good to go to make that "final approach". The EF LCD also has the beeping piezo to alert of packet reception and the GPS altitude indication is really great as one can tell if the apogee charge blew (by the rate of descent) and when to expect to see a main chute. (Just add field elevation that is displayed before the rocket is launched to the main chute deployment altitude set in the deployment altimeter and that's the altitude to look for on the EF LCD.) Can't see the main chute? One will know it's nominal by the markedly decreased descent rate displayed on the LCD.

Adding a B/T receiver to the EF receiver to pair to an Android device can make this totally automatic using a program like GPS Rocket Locator. Using an EF LCD with an Android device is nearly as "good" as APRS tracking with the APRS radio wired into a mapping Garmin
handheld GPS. The big thing here is the EggFinder setup is $120.00. The APRS setup is $600-$800 (radio, Garmin GPS and BLGPS)
I've done a fair amount of tracking via APRS and it is really the way to keep from losing rockets. The EF is in that league too with just a very slight difference that a casual user is not going to notice. One advantage the EF has over APRS is the update rate is 1/sec and APRS for rocket tracking is generally once every 5 seconds. Kurt