0011001100
A Person
List is being printed out tonight. I have updated my day as I will be attempting to fly tomorrow due to the weather.
MDRA Rockets Red Glare GPS Frequency Tracking
- Thread starter 0011001100
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Folks, I'll be at Red Glare on Sunday, the plan is to test Charles's eggStation software on one of my flights. The rocket will be a 4" dia dual deployment with a peak altitude of about 3.5Kft, it will have a a Proton board with 70cm telemetry to test that function and a Quasar as a back up. Unfortunately the eggStation software is not configured yet to support the Quasar/gps telemetry format . If someone at the launch on Sun has an Eggfinder or mini they are willing to loan for the test flight we can give it a ride, or alternatively just power it up on the ground and test the eggStation software. The eggStation forum thread is at: https://www.rocketryforum.com/threa...-ground-station-software-build-thread.178464/ Pls PM me if interested. Tnx.
Regards,
Bill Schworer
NAR & Tripoli L3
Regards,
Bill Schworer
NAR & Tripoli L3
eggStation software display with Higgs Farm map. Telemetry on the left, GPS position overlaid on the Google Map:
waltr
Well-Known Member
Now that Red Glare is over I though we should follow up on this thread and get feed-back as to how well the GPS Tracker Frequency table worked.
I only flew one flight with GPS (Eggfinder) on Friday (31mar). Rocket did go out of sight and GPS walked you right to it.
No issues obtaining a signal due to interference. I did lose signal once rocket was on the ground but 'last position' still took me directly to the rocket. Picked up the signal once I was closer. It landed about 2500 feet away but still within the recovery area.
What was your experience.
I only flew one flight with GPS (Eggfinder) on Friday (31mar). Rocket did go out of sight and GPS walked you right to it.
No issues obtaining a signal due to interference. I did lose signal once rocket was on the ground but 'last position' still took me directly to the rocket. Picked up the signal once I was closer. It landed about 2500 feet away but still within the recovery area.
What was your experience.
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Flew two using GPS with no issues. First flight didn't really need GPS since it landed about 300' away southeast of the launch rails. Second flight went 3500' up to apogee and recovered 2500' south in the deep grass. The grass nearly consumed the rocket and the bright orange 42" parachute. GPS took me right to it though. No loss of signal at any point.
The freq coordination chart was a great idea. I used it on Sat night to set the freq of the 70cm telemetry and the 915 MHz Quasar so that they wouldn't conflict with the others listed on the chart. Sunday test of the EggStation software (see image above) was good, the 4" dia dual deploy on a J-180 went up about 3100 feet and landed about 100 feet from the car...... no GPS needed this time 
Charles_McG
Ciderwright
^^ The ellipsis above is misplaced. I suggest 'No GPS was needed... this time.'The freq coordination chart was a great idea. I used it on Sat night to set the freq of the 70cm telemetry and the 915 MHz Quasar so that they wouldn't conflict with the others listed on the chart. Sunday test of the EggStation software (see image above) was good, the 4" dia dual deploy on a J-180 went up about 3100 feet and landed about 100 feet from the car...... no GPS needed this time
I'm hoping that LDRS people are looking at this thread/approach.
Gives a good indication of what's popular......
BALLS also.
Yes, great idea. I realize now I didn't check the printed out frequency table in case there were new additions to list beyond the last time I saw it here on TRF. Something to remember for next time.
I flew one flight with Eggfinder GPS on Friday, my base station didn't get a fix, but not an issue with the frequencies in use, I believe. My rocket didn't separate at apogee (undersized charge? It fired...) and had a highspeed deployment of the main at low altitude. At least it didn't come in ballistic.
The nosecone (and therefore the GPS transmitter) separated and I didn't recover it (got the rest of the rocket). So my GPS would have continued transmitting until the battery died. Not ideal. Hopefully that didn't cause issues with others. Ironic that the only part I didn't recover was the GPS.
I flew 7 flights I believe. All with trackers. While I could see the landing position of all my flights, several were between 1/2 mile and 1 mile out. All of which I was able to connect with and got good lat/longs on each along with directional data on my handheld receiver. While I didnt "need" the tracking for all but one recovery in the long grass, it was great to know it was working flawlessly. Thanks again for mainting the frequency list!
