Which begs the question; how here watching and providing feedback have lost there vehicle anyway due to GPS or RDF failure to locate (?) By that, I do not mean if it was lost to a rocket eating tree etc. I mean physically could not locate their rocket due to a loss of signal.
Sure, ballistic flight and loss of power to the tracker. Ballistic flight though if one has one position when the rocket is coming in that's close to the ground (perhaps 500 feet AGL or less) one stands a better chance of finding the hole or the pieces.
RDF if completely sight unseen very little chance one can hold an accurate bearing once the tracker dies.
Sure, if a main at apogee comes out at 10k might not be able to follow along and track long enough to get to where the rocket lies. RDF or GPS it could be a challenge. If using a 2 meter Ham Band APRS tracker on 144.390Mhz,
on the national APRS frequency and using a WIDE 2-1 path one might be able to get away with it except the APRS Nazis get ticked off with someone hitting a digipeater once every 5 seconds. For the uninitiated Digipeaters are
ham radio stations that "listens" for a position packet and will re-transmit it and possibly gate it to the internet:
https://aprs.fi/#!mt=roadmap&z=11&call=a/KB9YVN&timerange=3600&tail=3600 KB9YVN is a
digipeater. Any Ham radio operator could setup a digipeater and if ones rocket went way out of range locally, if it was within range of a digipeater on 144.390Mhz, one could look online for the track.
Again, the
only problem here is the APRS
Nazis consider it poor form to be "hogging" the national frequency once every 5 seconds. One might be able to pull it off for a relatively
short rocket flight but if the rocket lands in an inaccessible place and hits a digipeater every 5 seconds that could be a problem. If there is no digipeater nearby then not a problem or if one uses say 144.600Mhz off the
national APRS frequency to track locally only would not jerk anyone's ire.
Use a 100mW 33cm (900Mhz) tracker in a very high flying screamer that lands 5 miles away. If it's out on the playa that would be even worse. You want to be able to get within the ground foot print of the tracker which out on the playa is not good.
Even in farmland, if the tracker lands in a natural depression the ground footprint can be zilch. With sport rockets that isn't much of a problem because you are likely to get a position while the rocket is 50 to 100 feet in the air. It will probably be lying
nearby so it will be close enough for you to find. Using a screamer like Mr. Handeman suggests is a good idea if it can fit.
RDF failures are more likely if the rocket goes out of sight and you lose the bearing. Sure if you see it coming in at a distance that gives you someplace to start your search but if it goes "way out there", you can't hold a bearing, you don't see where it went
it could be a challenge.
Also beware that some deployment devices don't play well with Rf trackers. The newer ones with opto-isolation do well but older devices need to be tested. That is bare contained ematches, stand the rocket up and turn on the tracker. Let sit for an hour.
If the altimeter doesn't, shutdown, or reset, or blow the matches during the test one is likely in good shape.
One definitely should avoid a deployment device where the maker says it doesn't play well with Rf. ie. AIM USB 2.0 (Not the GPS tracker version but just the deployment device) it says in the instructions not to use an Rf tracker. Adept 22's have seized with 150Mhz 2 watt dog trackers.
I just had to get a PICO AA2 'cause I respect Robert DeHate's work. Yeah not as fancy and a bit out of date maybe but I wanted an accel/baro based device without issues. Found out one of my USB cables Cris Cerving sent for his EggTimers/Finders works fine with this. Bottom pin is + plus and the top pin is - negative. The remaining two pins are tx and rcv. I got the +/- right and one usually doesn't cause any harm with crossing the signal cables. If it doesn't work one way, switch the two and that's how I got it to work. You don't want to do reverse polarity as that can kill a device.
If I decide to try to fly it with a tracker, I'm going to do testing to prove it will be reliable in an Rf field. Or if many folks report they've had stellar results I might be a little lax........ Naaaaahhhhh!! Kurt