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Steven88

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I am wanting input on an economical tracker for my latest build. Now that I am flying higher, my latest rocket is supposed to fly 11,000’, I feel that a tracking devise of some sort is important. I’ve been eyeing the simple gps tracker from Apogee. It’s $426, is that the least amount that you can expect to spend on a decent tracking device for a rocket, or is there something good that costs less?
 
Altus Metrim Telegps tied with the TeleBT will cost a bit less.
Also Missile Works RTX about $350 all in.
Featherweight GPS also comparable in price but you’re limited to use with an iPhone. No android app available yet.
All are great systems.
 
That's like asking what's the best car to buy.

Fortunately for the hobby, there's currently a lot of options

What are your criteria? Size? Weight? Ability to bluetooth or wifi to a smart device? Ease of use? Lowest cost possible? Max range?
 
Last edited:
Egg finder Mini, I bought the transmitter, and receiver Black Friday special Eric Hamilton is putting it together for me for half of that
 
Yep, during the black Friday sale, the whole set assembled was $210. $255 now. But I popped my main chute at 14k' and it drifted 6 miles. Eggfinder Mini walked (drove) me right to it.1219190814b.jpg1219190814a.jpg
 
Exactimator said:
That's like asking what's the best car to buy.

Fortunately for the hobby, there's currently a lot of options

What are your criteria? Size? Weight? Ability to bluetooth or wifi to a smart device? Ease of use? Lowest cost possible? Max range?
Click to expand...
As I advance I’ll probably want something better, but for now is all I care about is not having to worry about loosing my rocket. Size and weight aren’t really a concern for the size of rocket/motor I have. Am looking for something for a little less money that doesn’t have to have all the bells and whistles.
 
Missileworks T3 is probably your best bang for your buck in terms of economics. I love mine, zero issues.

When you're ready to go big, check out the Entacore AIM XTRA. I'm a big fan.
 
Cameron Anderson said:
Missileworks T3 is probably your best bang for your buck in terms of economics. I love mine, zero issues.

When you're ready to go big, check out the Entacore AIM XTRA. I'm a big fan.
Click to expand...
The bum deal is I only have apple phone, nothing android so I’m sunk with the Missileworks T3 aren’t I?
 
Yeah I’ll give some feedback on the Featherweight GPS trackers. My university last year was using those to 11,563 ft and M1.69 it tracked during boost on a 29mm MD multistage with 1.4 miles into a swamp. We lost signal at 100 ft tree canopies. (As too be expected of any 900 MHz system.) we still got our rocket back and won nationals. Adrian was on the phone with us at like midnight in Florida time.

As far as GpS units I obtained my HAM license and prefer the TeleGPS as it seems to do better in thick brush and tree lines. We have flown TeleGPS extensively also. I am going for 26,400 ft and M2.4 with a TeleGPS next year for my L2 rocket after I L2 cert. I like the TeleGPS and Featherweight units because they are small. Small doesn’t matter if you only fly big projects but if you want to make needle min diameter yardstick sized rocket it’ll matter.

Consider this you can never make a tracker smaller after you buy it. These units seem very powerful and accurate for size. My next tracker may be an AIM but so far I love the TeleGPS unit. I would not have any qualms of flying a Featherweight unit if I didn’t have a HAM ticket. They also seem nice quality.

An egg finder is cheaper if you suck at soldering then pick up something pre made. I would pass on the apogee tracker. I prefer a live telemetry flight route voice calls outs, and the ability that data is auto saved Incase rocket destruction in flight happens. The TeleGPS does all that while the Featherweight wasn’t as initiative with route storage/access etc.
We had to excel interpolate a bunch of data on featherweight for routes where as
The tele would just display it plus coordinates without using more programs.

Usually you take your smart phone and get google maps and plug those coordinates in and find gps tracker that way. The advantage is you can either jot down coordinates at altitudes before ground impact Incase a tree line is near and get an approx search location at worst. At best you’ll get landed and have coordinates within five feet usually. We have tested units in excess of 70 G loading. We have had units fail at tracking at 168 G loading. Just a word to the wise they have limits.

We had a group push 18700 ft on L1 motors staged flight with Featherweight no issues. I recommend the TeleGPS but I would also fly a Featherweight any day if I also had one.
 
Steven88 said:
The bum deal is I only have apple phone, nothing android so I’m sunk with the Missileworks T3 aren’t I?
Click to expand...
As Cameron says, the Featherweight tracker is iPhone compatible:

https://www.featherweightaltimeters.com/store/p14/GPS_Tracker.html.html

If you choose the Full System - tracker, ground station, and batteries, it's $352 all in. The feature set is very good and continues to grow. I've used them at 2 BALLS launches, LDRS in Kansas, and local launches. Really a great tracker and very small as well.


Tony
 
The best thing going about the Featherweight is top notch customer support and size. It’s a quality 900 MHz unit you won’t need a ham license to operate. It’ll save you hundreds in lost rockets to buy a quality tracker the first time. I use a laptop and a TeleGPS personally but I’ll say this I really liked the featherweight units when my university paid for them. I can’t say enough good about them both. But hey maybe I’m biased towards Altus and Featherweight. Without those guys we wouldn’t have won nationals sequentially lol. They make top notch products.
 
I absolutely suck at soldering so I stayed away from egg products but if your good at that then by all means they are great too.
 
Look into the Marco Polo drone/rocket tracker from Eureka products $220 for everything and it works well.
Andrew
 
Eggtimer TRS or GPS Mini with the handheld station, add a bluetooth module and link it to your phone with Rocket Locator. It's what I use. I can build it for you. Works for years on all my kits. Minimum diameter and everything in between. Cost effective and simple.
 
Steven88 said:
How difficult did you find it to make the solder connections? I have a little experience soldering but not a lot
Click to expand...

Calling my soldering skills Cro-Magnon is an insult to tool using humans everywhere. I’ve built several Egg units successfully including an Eggfinder original, Eggfinder Mini, and Rx LCD. The only thing I tried to build that I couldn’t get to work was the GPS add on to the LCD. Just go slow and don’t sling solder everywhere.
 
BSNW said:
Look into the Marco Polo drone/rocket tracker from Eureka products $220 for everything and it works well.
Andrew
Click to expand...
Seems like not a bad option. The one drawback I’d see it it only has a range of 2 miles but seldom does a rocket drift that far if you’re only going to 11k with dual deploy I’d think.
 
My Com-Spec tracker/receiver has worked very well fo me. I have had one for 15 plus years. Yes Bong can be a very hard place to locate a rocket.
 

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