I recently bought a Telemetrum Starter Kit from the Garbee and Garbee Web
Store.
There is a combo box where you can choose "1/4 wave wire" or "SMA connector
+ $5.00"
I didn't really give it much thought, but I picked "SMA connector" (I think
I may have
thought: "it cost more, it must be better")
When I got the starter set, I realized that that it wasn't "in addition to
a 1/4 wave wire"
but "instead of". So ... I went back to the gag.com site and found the Whip
Antenna
and bought that.
Then I got to thinking about how I would install the altimeter with whip
antenna in a
rocket. (Good time to start thinking about it, eh? :-)
My (first) target rocket for the Telemetrum is a Giant Leap Vertical
Assault 3.0.
and it doesn't have "acres" of space.
So my first question is:
Can I just bend the whip antenna into a horse-shoe shape to get it to fit
into the
altimeter bay? (I guess the really question is "Will this significantly
compromise the
performance of the antenna?") And if it is "a bad idea" what should I do?
My first thought was to find a short SMA male to SMA female cable so that
the whip
antenna can be straight. Is this "a good idea"? (necessary?, etc)
Next: in poking around the Altus Metrum and gag.com web sites while
researching
about my altimeter question, I saw a link to a "SMA To BNC adapter" on the
Teledongle page.
I bought an Arrow II Hand Held Portable Antenna 440-3 and in looking more
closely
at the product description page, it looks like it has a BNC connector.
So it looks like I'll need to get either the SMA to BNC adapter or get a
coax cable
with a male SMA connector on one end and a male BNC connector on the other.
Have I got that right?
If so, any recommendations?
Peter "I just got my ham radio technical license, so *clearly* I'm an
expert on all things RF" Hackett
:-) or :-< or :-/ ?
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Altus Metrum releases TeleBT, AltosDroid, and AltOS 1.2.1
BLACK FOREST, Colorado USA
Altus Metrum is pleased to announce the immediate availability of TeleBT,
and version 1.2.1 of our AltOS software including an Android application.
TeleBT is a new ground station designed to allow tracking and recovery of
your rocket with an Android device. TeleBT incorporates a 70cm radio to
communicate with Altus Metrum flight computers, and a Bluetooth radio that
connects with Android phones and tables, and with computers running Linux
that have a Bluetooth interface. TeleBT also has a micro USB connector
used to charge the internal battery, and for connection to computers
running Linux, Mac OS X, and Windows. More information about TeleBT is
available at http://altusmetrum.org/TeleBT.
Our new Android application, AltosDroid, is available for free from the
Google Play store, and works on most current Android devices. AltosDroid
monitors your rocket flight, reporting status on the screen and
through voice synthesis. Once your rocket is on the ground, you can use
AltosDroid to walk to your rocket with help from Google Maps. More details
about AltosDroid are available at http://altusmetrum.org/AltosDroid.
AltOS 1.2.1 adds support for TeleBT, along with a number of other new
features and bug fixes. This version includes updated firmware that
improves radio sensitivity, along with USB fixes for many issues
reported by customers running Windows. AltOS 1.2.1 also improves flight
data analysis by adding configurable graph contents, additional flight
summary information and a map showing the ground track of the flight. A
more detailed list of AltOS changes is available along with the updated
software at http://altusmetrum.org/AltOS.
Enough of you knew my plans for yesterday and have emailed asking how
things went that I thought I should just report here to let you all know
that I flew a TeleMega (formerly MegaMetrum) v0.3 prototype for the
first time yesterday at Tripoli Colorado's research launch at the
buffalo ranch near Hartsel, CO. The board flew "solo" in my 98mm
test-mule "Trick-o-Treat" on a CTI J600 red motor.
It was a textbook-perfect dual deploy, and the data from the u-blox GPS
looks great! We haven't studied all the sensor data yet, but so far I'm
*very* happy with the performance of this board version.
The wind came up making it unsafe to attempt a complex flight in the
airframe I threw together to try some air-starts, but we'll be at the
NAR National Sport Launch all of next weekend and hope to fly more tests
there.
http://altusmetrum.org/TeleMega
I also wanted to note that using TeleBT on a 3-element Arrow yagi along
with my Galaxy S2 phone running the latest released AltosDroid from the
Google Play store was huge fun! We used it even though we didn't need
to during the (short) recovery walk and were pleased to note the
airframe was within 2 meters of where the phone's GPS said it should
be... TeleBT is in stock for shipment now, even though we haven't really
officially announced it yet pending release of AltOS version 1.2. Kudos
to Mike Beattie for his work on AltosDroid... there's lots more it could
do, but the current version is already pretty awesome!
http://altusmetrum.org/TeleBT
Bdale
Hi All,
So this was the maiden test flight - a modified Madcow Piranha (dual
deploy with an extra 8" of length) on a G79W (which I thought should
hit 800' according to Open Rocket but barely made 550 -- weirdly
Madcow's simple little iphone app predicted this!). I had installed
the motor ejection charge as a precaution as I had no way to ground
test it.
I believe the motor ejection charge fired first - just pre-apogee (the
big blue acceleration spike). Looking at the 2 ejection centrifuge
canisters (with 0.5g 4F) it looks like they both fired. But the
voltage drops were different - the aft drogue appeared to have a tiny
drop, but the main showed a huge drop. The main was set to fire at
400' (I thought it would have been about half way down from 800', but
it was only down from 550).
>From ground observation it looked liked the 4F charge was too small to
cleanly blow the chute packages (drogue was a reefed 30") out - and
they seemed to wriggle out slowly and only fully inflate a 100' or so
off the ground. I think this can be seen by the relatively constant
descent velocity, that only slows down just before reaching ground
level.
Anyway, I'd love to have your experienced read on this! It was so cool
having the live GPS talking during the brief flight, had a bunch of
interested folk around us at NASA Ames/Moffet Field.
Cheers,
Winton
Hi,
For a brief while I was able to talk to the telemetrum, and
unsuccesfully tried to fire the charges (what voltage is supposed to
come across those terminals - I tried a couple of small LED's in
place, 12v ones, but they didn't light up - too high a voltage
requirement?).
Anyway, after that, I was trying to see if I could Monitor Idle Mode
etc, and I started getting "Connecting... Call Sign etc", but it just
hangs. I've rebooted everything but my computer to no avail! I get 3
beeps a delay then 2 beeps and 2 short beeps (I think - my ability to
count short sounds is poor). The altimeter is lying down.
Cheers,
Winton
Rockets 2013 event in Fredericksburg, Texas streaming live right
now...liable to see some flights with your hardware aboard.
http://www.ustream.tv/channel/rockets-2013
University High School had 2 transonic attempts yesterday with the
Telemetrum on board..unfortunately for all hardware.catastrophic failure.
But the students had very astute observations and suggestions for the next
build. Always learning..
Dennis Oubre
Rockets and Robots Instructor
Waco, Texas
