Originally posted by teflonrocketry1
Ray,
Looks like you have a nice launch site! Where were these pictures taken? Do you put a tracking transmitter in with the cameras when you lauch them in case the rocket drifts?
The badlands pics were taken in a remote region of the Imperial desert in So. Cal. I haven't used tracking transmitters, mainly due to the cost. But I usually put Pratt micro-beacons on them, which helps quite a bit. That particular area is a tough place to recover rockets from -- in March I lost an entire rocket and camera payload on a two-stage rlfight. The smoke obscured my view of the second stage and I lost sight of it. Heard the ejection charge pop but never saw a thing. Sad to say, I didn't have a micro-beacon on that one, since I'd just destroyed three of them in the crash of another rocket. Since then I've spent many, many hours searching for it, to no avail.
The last time I flew there, I had one rocket that ended up on a cliff. I couldn't get near it from above or below. Finally managed to knock it loose by throwing rocks at it -- luckily it survived with only minor scrapes.
BTW, I found a neat siren to use on larger rockets. It's a little alarm that is designed to go on sliding windows, with a magnetic switch that activates the siren when the window is opened. It's oval shaped, measuring 2.5"x1.25"x1" and produces a literally painful 120db shriek. I drilled a couple holes through one end of it, and threaded a lop of kevlar coard through it. Then I just attach it to the shockcord same as the Pratt micro-beacons.
