Ready for some testing

I've gotten the buzz module antenna in. I also finished all the soldering/connections for it and programmed the beacon.

I'm ready to do some testing. Specifically I want to see the max range we receive on the ground with the the aprs signal and how long it lasts. I would also like to see how far away I can locate the beacon via the yagi directional antenna.

I should be getting a short sma pigtail cable in the mail shortly, this will allow more flexible placement of the antenna in the payload container - less likely it will get broken during landing.

Still waiting on the camera accessories - SD card and external battery pack.

Weight allowing - we might also place a small 'hand warmer' inside the box to help keep things warm.

Parts, Parts, Parts

So far we have the following in:

Buzz module
Beacon
Gps
Camera
Parachute

I've confirmed the firmware on the GPS is sufficient to report above 60k feet. Also I've programmed the 'buzz' and beacon with the appropriate info (call signs and such). I've soldered on the connector to buzz. I still need to solder on the DB9 connector to the gps.

We are still waiting on a external battery pack for the camera, antenna for the gps beacon, and a 16GB SD card for the camera.

We can rebuild it...

We have already began buying the compontents for balloon flight #4 (this time with less fail!).

We have already ordered and a new gps, aprs beacon, parachute, video camera, and directional beacon.

This time we are thinking of putting a boost mobile cell phone along with instamapper software that will track the phone via its gps and log it on the web. This will provide a backup method of finding it.

Failure WAS an option...

Its all bad...

First the weather was not as well as was expected, however since the chance of rain was only 10% we proceeded. Also we changed our launch site at the last moment to move our expected landing site into a better location.

We started filling the balloon right away (first mistake). Then we plugged everything in and went to test from the car - and got no packets. Eventually we thought the anteanna was too close to the ground and held it up while testing. We received packets.

Right about then it started to rain.


We hurriedly packaged everythign back up only to realize we left the beacon module outside the box after we just taped it shut. In a rush to launch we taped it to the top of the box.

We then released the balloon and hurried to pack everything back in the car. Meanwhile I relized that the computer was not tracking the balloon, because I forgot to turn a crucial piece of the software on. I started tracking it at about 4000 feet up.

We started moving north east to get ahead of the expected path. The balloon was still headed south west. It was expected to do that until it reached 10k feet or so then head north east. It turned north east as expected and was looking good, if raising somewhat slowly. Then it started going down.

Since it was going down slow we knew the balloon had not burst. Either we underfilled or the rain/weather was making it come down (probably a combination of both). It continued to come down and started heading west (towards Peoria) At around 1000 feet it started up again then down after a few thousand feet of gaining elevation. At this point we just wanted it on the ground.

Then just about the worse thing that could happen happened - it headed towards the airport. It went right next to the airport at only a few thousand feet and then continued west slowly falling. We lost aprs signal at only 75 or so feet off the ground. This was more or less expected as we assumed it was on the ground and we lost signal due to terrain.

We eventually arrived near the apparent landing site and started picking up a strong beacon signal (no aprs data however). This was a good sign as it indicated the balloon was reasonbly close by. We had no luck locating it however. We drove around the area and eventually started using the directional antenna on the handheld radio to try and get a direction to the beacon. It first indicated West. After driving around more the signal was becoming fainter. We started to try and get a better direction with the handheld and now it was pointing north east. We drove a few miles in that direction and took another reading. Always a very faint signal north east.

Eventually we ran into Peoria and no longer could pick up the signal. The only thing I can think happened is that the balloon came down and for whatever reason the gps stopped working. Then it took off again and got sufficent altitude to start heading north east.

We never found it.

Last min stuff

Picked up the helium tank today.

We were talking about possibly moving the launch site. We will check the projected flight plan in the morning and if it is going to land in an undesirable location (i.e. Chicago area) there is no reason we can't move our launch site so that it will land further south.

We also have an additional 'payload' we are going to attach - a Flat Stanley that belongs to a friends nephew. We can attach it to the bottom of the payload and take some pictures of it on the way up.

All ready to go

So far everything looks good weather-wise.

The only unknown that could be a problem is the projected trajectory of the flight, we won't have an updated version of that until the morning.

I'll update info via twitter: http://twitter.com/linuxv

Realtime tracking can be seen here: http://aprs.fi/?call=kc9pum-11

Hoping to reach in excess of 100,000 feet and have High Def video during the entire flight, we also have a temperature monitor on board that will record both the temperature inside and outside the capsule every 5 seconds.

More arduino/aprs goodness

Worked on sending out a message from the arduino, it was transmitting but I was just receiving silence on the other side. I eventually figured out I had the ptt and mic lines soldered in the wrong place. After re doing that and increasing the mic gain it worked! I was able to send a aprs message to my other radio.

Next step is to be running xastir on the laptop and see if I can read messages as they come in and then send out a message back to the arduino to have it turn on a light or something.

APRS on the Arduino

I was able to receive aprs packets via my arduino!

I built a connector from the new VX-3 radio to the arduino radio shield. Then through some trial and error I was able to receive aprs packets as plain text on the arduino. Took me a while to figure out the necessary settings on the radio (turn off power save, and set the volume to '15' basically). This will allow me to send short text messages to the handheld radio (which will be located in a future balloon). Once I have the aprs formatting down I can also send out messages from the arduino as well. This will allow me to have basic two way communication to the balloon over a long distance.

Radio Test

Did a couple of simple gps/radio tests today. I was able to track the gps module (buzz) successfully. Logged a kml & tnc.log file ok.

Also received my Yaesu VX-3R HT radio today. I still need an offset attenuator to make it an ideal for finding a beacon. However I plan on using it with my recently purchased arduino radio shield to see if I can send and receive ax.25 packets.

T minus 5 days

Helium tank is reserved for pickup on Friday.

So far the weather looks pretty good for Saturday, or Sunday if need be.

The early flight path predictions put it headed straight east and landing near the boarder of Indiana. Only downside to that flightpath is that it looks like its hitting a jet stream and it might be difficult to stay under it in the chase car.

Cool potential 2way communication with Balloon

I just found a cool radio shield for the arduio

I already ordered it, and it should be here next week. Too soon to incorporate into this launch but perhaps the next one.

This should allow me to easily have 2-way communication to the balloon while in flight via the AX.25 protocol. Basically 'emails' back and forth. This way the ballon can send down data, such as temperature and other goodies. While I could command it to do things - i.e. cut away ballon etc....

Very cool - I'm eager to get it in.

Testing...

I double checked the programming of the RDF beacon and charged its battery. Its all ready to go.

I also made sure xastir was working with my radio, could receive aprs signals and display on the laptop. Also made sure it would display the cars position on the map. Xastir is supposed to be able to read the current position from the link to the radio which has a gps plugged into it, however I could not get that working (just like last time). So I have to have an additional gps plugged directly into the computer. Its no big deal just a slight annoyance as there are two things plugged in as opposed to one.