(Edited for brevity)I personally know of several flights that had GPS trackers that either went way off course or came in ballistic and were never found. So I could argue that GPS is no guarantee either.
And I'd much rather lose a $125 transmitter than a GPS unit costing 2X or more as much.
Nothing wrong with GPS but in my personal experience and many observations it's as fallible as any other tracking method. At BALLS this year my BRB GPS unit failed on 2 flights so if I had relied solely on it for tracking I would have been out of luck. But I had backup beacons in each flight and was able to recover the rockets.
Tony
If one gets their units wrong on inputting lat/long into a phone or handheld GPS, sure they'll lose it. Eggfinders are on sale for $50.00 now so one doesn't have to
spend that much. Fifty bucks is easier to swallow than $259.00 from a Beeline GPS. After 7 flights with Eggfinders and TRS I haven't lost a rocket yet including
one ballistic and one completely sight unseen. The sight unseen flight the chute hung in the harness after the Jolly Logic Chute Release did its thing. There was enough drag the Madcow/RW 38 Special survived as did the EggFinder. It continued to transmit on the ground.
Everyone was looking to the East whereas I knew from the map the rocket was heading to the West. I used a patch antenna and after the rocket was down, I was still getting positions. The rocket visited 4,900 feet. Also, with the 900Mhz trackers, a Yagi antenna definitely increases the ground footprint for recovery. On the tracker "dog" rockets I was flying to feel out the system, those that came down within the limits of sight, the Yagi was giving more than 1/4 mile ground range. True, since one knows pretty much where the rocket is, the short vertical duck antenna will eventually give a final fix when one gets close enough.
I agree, if one is working under difficult conditions such as beacon failure or poor Rf propagation like that is had on the playa, GPS/APRS
is no better than RDF.
A fellow posted here one time during a survey he likes his 1 watt AP510 APRS tracker for larger projects: https://www.sainsonic.com/ap510-apr...th-thermometer-tf-card-support-aprsdroid.html.
Anyone who is a Ham and flies the BRB 70cm stuff could use one. Especially if they are using a 2meter/70cm APRS handi-talkie in the
first place. Kurt
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