[chbot] Sundays balloon-adventure, report please

Hadley Rich hads at nice.net.nz
Mon Jan 7 20:58:39 GMT 2013 

Hi Andre,

If you have the room/weight then we've got these GPS modules that I'd 
love to see tested on a balloon;

http://nicegear.co.nz/gps/ultimate-gps-module-66-channel-w10-hz-updates/

Adafruit have apparently tested them to 27km.

There's a simple 5V breakout too depending on what batteries you're running;

http://nicegear.co.nz/gps/ultimate-gps-breakout-66-channel-w10-hz-updates/

I'd be happy to chat about it if you were keen.

Cheers,

hads

On 08/01/13 09:48, André Geldenhuis wrote:
> Hi Chris
>
> Sounds like a cool project :)  The reason we went with 10mW was that the
> transmitter costs about $5 and weighs about 1 gram.  Our entire payload
> including 2 cameras, spot tracker, electronics, batteries for 5hours +
> and insulation etc only came to 900 grams and I reckon we can reduce the
> weight some more.  10mW also saves on battery weight.  We also don't
> really need a faster data rate unless we want to transmit video, which
> we have considered doing.  Obviously our 4 baud data rate wouldn't be up
> to that :P
>
> Cheers :)
> Andre
>
> On Tue, Jan 8, 2013 at 8:08 AM, Chris Hellyar <chris at trash.co.nz
> <mailto:chris at trash.co.nz>> wrote:
>
>     Hi Andre,
>
>     Can I ask a possibly not relevant question: why only 10mW?
>
>     There is unlicensed spectrum in the PRS band for telemetry, or you
>     could get a ham involved and run licensed in the 70cm band (Although
>     not that frequency, that's in the repeater uplink section of the
>     band) .  Both options would let you run a higher bandwidth downlink.
>
>     Just curious about the design decision as a rapid ascent balloon is
>     one of my (many) unfinished projects.
>
>     I made the payload container a couple of years ago and got as far as
>     making the camera controller and researching GPS's. My cunning plan
>     was to launch to time the burst with an ISS overhead pass and relay
>     telemetry off the APRS digipeater on board.  It was my main
>     motivation to getting my amateur license at the time, although now
>     I've got the DX bug and that's a whole other bowl of cornies.
>
>     Cheers, Chris H.
>
>
>
>
>     On 07/01/13 23:58, André Geldenhuis wrote:
>>     Partial success I'm afraid :P
>>
>>     The spot tracker stopped above 60k feet which we expected but I
>>     had hoped it would start working once below that again.  It
>>     appears not for whatever reason.     We also had a 10mW radio on
>>     board the balloon transmitting location, altitude and temperature
>>     which the recovery team managed to track all the way out to 80km
>>     with good decoding except when the balloon was low on the
>>     horizon.  The last GPS fix was at 3436m at a composite position of
>>     -44.04174, -173.04946.  The position is composite as the last two
>>     messages only contained one of latitude and longitude due to
>>     signal breakup.   It puts the payload out to sea south of akaroa
>>     harbour.
>>
>>
>>     The balloon ascended much slower than anticipated and we are not
>>     sure why yet, we are still going though the data to try and figure
>>     out what happened.  The slow assent was the reason the balloon
>>     went out to sea, it took much longer to reach its burst altitude.
>>     Next time we will have cut downs :P
>>
>>     We are hoping it washes up and someone finds it and returns it to
>>     us. The electronics will be wreaked but the two camera SD cards
>>     and data logger SD cards might still be ok and it would be nice to
>>     see the pictures :)
>>
>>     We got about 80% of the objectives for the flight though and we
>>     planned to iterate all the electronics and replace the spot with a
>>     spot 2 which has a ublox GPS unit so will work above 60k feet. We
>>     will fly the next iteration soonish.
>>
>>
>>     I'll let the list know if we get any picures back
>>
>>     Cheers
>>     Andre
>>
>>
>>     On Mon, Jan 7, 2013 at 8:51 PM, Mark Atherton
>>     <markaren1 at xtra.co.nz <mailto:markaren1 at xtra.co.nz>> wrote:
>>
>>         Hi Andre,
>>
>>         Looks like it was a sucess, well done.
>>
>>         From http://goo.gl/1o6o6 password microprize ...
>>
>>         Launch time close to 10:42, with signal loss 12:51, so just
>>         over 2 hrs flight time (?)
>>
>>         Not obvious what altitude you managed, or I haven't found the
>>         correct button yet.
>>
>>         Any chance of a quick report here and maybe a fuller report
>>         with photos at the next Tait-meeting ?
>>
>>         Regards,
>>
>>         Mark
>>
>>
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