snrkl
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- Apr 11, 2017
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This thread has been a real eye opener for me. I built by eggfinder system a year ago but just recently started using it. I just thought I remembered everything in the manual. It's also good to hear about the different possible recovery outcomes that could affect gps results.
You may have lost signal at launch, then reacquired it during descent, then lost it before the actual landing because of terrain or the power lines. This last good fix was the one your wife recorded and resulted in a location where your rocket passed over but didn't come to rest.
It then sounds like you reacquired the signal when you continued walking to the actual landing site, but since you didn't check the coordinates displayed at this point you can not definitively say that you were getting erroneous data from your system. It sounds more like procedural issue.
I had this on the weekend.. I plugged in the coordinates I got when it landed and jumped in the car and head off. Left the LCD receiver (still beeping) in the car and walked into the field.. After 10mins of fruitless searching, walked back to the car, got the LCD out, input the coords and cursed as I thought the Apple maps had decided to give me the nearest road location... ignored it, input into google maps, got the same result.. walked to where it was telling me the rocket was, and sure enough it was there...
I've certainly updated my checklist for EFMini flights.
1) record (photo) launchpad location pre launch and check on the map to make sure it's where I know it is.
2) take more notice of the number of satellites the LCD is telling me the MINI has.
3) launch
4) when I see it land, take another pic of the coords on the LCD and PAY ATTENTION TO THE NUMBER OF SATS IT IS REPORTING
5) TAKE THE LCD WITH ME TO RETRIEVE...
6) When I get lost, recheck the LCD coords (take pics) and re-input into the GPS...
When @cerving announced the LCD-side GPS, I wondered what fool would need this frivolous extravagance.
Now, after two flights, realising how hard it is to see my iphone screen in full sunlight, am thinking about ordering one... ;^)