the freshman
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Yesterday my SLI team had a successful test flight of our 4", ~7' rocket on a K570WW to an apogee of over 6200'. Dual-deployment with a Defy Gravity Tether went smoothly, and the rocket was recovered in good condition.
However, we didn't get a good enough signal from our Boostervision Gearcam onboard the rocket to record video of much more than the first hundred feet of liftoff. We were able to pick up a picture intermittantly while using the antenna to scan the cloudy sky for the rocket when it was near apogee; sound actually came through well the entire time.
I know our limiting factor is the low power output of the Gearcam, but since the Mile High Combo can work at over a mile in altitude, my thoughts on why ours didn't this particular time are:
-Our 14 db-gain patch antenna may not have given us enough gain
-Cloudy sky conditions prevented microwave transmission to the ground
-Our camera's antenna might have to be outside the rocket for the needed signal strength
I'm guessing the transmitter antenna position was the main problem. (Polarization was correct; both receiver antenna and camera rubber duck were horizontally polarized.) Unfortunately, the nature of the rubber duck antenna prevents it from being outside the airframe unless the entire camera is outside the airframe, and I want to avoid mounting the camera on the outside of the airframe.
Any suggestions?
However, we didn't get a good enough signal from our Boostervision Gearcam onboard the rocket to record video of much more than the first hundred feet of liftoff. We were able to pick up a picture intermittantly while using the antenna to scan the cloudy sky for the rocket when it was near apogee; sound actually came through well the entire time.
I know our limiting factor is the low power output of the Gearcam, but since the Mile High Combo can work at over a mile in altitude, my thoughts on why ours didn't this particular time are:
-Our 14 db-gain patch antenna may not have given us enough gain
-Cloudy sky conditions prevented microwave transmission to the ground
-Our camera's antenna might have to be outside the rocket for the needed signal strength
I'm guessing the transmitter antenna position was the main problem. (Polarization was correct; both receiver antenna and camera rubber duck were horizontally polarized.) Unfortunately, the nature of the rubber duck antenna prevents it from being outside the airframe unless the entire camera is outside the airframe, and I want to avoid mounting the camera on the outside of the airframe.
Any suggestions?