Keith and I both hope to be able to attend "Thunda Down Under"[1] in
2015, and I've sent the organizers email requesting information on what
it takes to be treated as an on-site vendor.
Of course, it's always more fun to be at a launch when you have something
interesting to fly! Thus, while Keith and I might each show up with a
modest "travel rocket" of some sort... I've started pondering possible
larger "Altus Metrum" group projects. Since transporting a large
airframe to Australia would be a hassle, I wonder if a group project to
build an airframe in-country makes more sense? To that end, I'd be
pleased to know if any of our friends and customers in Australia want to
sign up to help with such a project?
My thoughts would be to engage in some group-think about project scope
and goals, then hope friends in-country would take on the sourcing and
preparation of suitable airframe materials. Depending on who wants to
participate and how tasks get taken up, we might plan to arrive a bit
early to help with any final assembly or other preparations,
installation of suitably fresh Altus Metrum electronics, etc.
So, to all our Aussie friends... does this sound like fun? If so,
please chime in with a reply. I don't expect the email associated with
such a project to be too heavy a load for this list to carry, but we can
always spawn a dedicated lists.gag.com list if I'm wrong.
Regards,
Bdale
[1] http://thunda.com.au/
Not working here. I tried the D72A and paired a Mobilinkd TNC1 to a Nexus 7 with a plain H/T.
Packets come across but nothing is decoded. With the Mobilinkd, I made certain it was decoding APRS packets properly off the air on 144.390 and then used a 70cm Beeline GPS. All worked fine there including packets transmitted from the D72A and off-frequency D7's.
I could "hear" the data packet on the TeleGPS coming in but no decode. Does a separate
APRS packet get sent in between the GFSK data bursts or is it mixed in with the data bursts?
If it's separate I do not hear anything that resembles the APRS sound. If it's "mixed in" with the
Altus metrum format, it sorta sounds like an APRS packet but is not decoded.
Nonetheless, if my settings are appropriate, I believe the TeleGPS I have is not behaving up
to spec if it's supposed to be able to send an APRS packet. I'll wait till I hear from Keith or
B'dale and see what they say about my settings.
I've used three rigs to attempt to decode packets (although I didn't expect much from the off
frequency D7) two of which work fine with 2 meter and 70cm off-air packets. I'm stumped.
Kurt KC9LDH
________________________________
From: Douglas Bertelsen <douglas.bertelsen(a)gmail.com>
To: Kurt <ksaves2(a)sbcglobal.net>
Sent: Saturday, January 31, 2015 9:26 AM
Subject: Re: [altusmetrum] Contact Form
Those settings gave me good packets. All else failing, can you record the audio from the radio during transmissions and post it if those settings don't work? I can compare it to what I hear and maybe give some insight.
Doug
I flew my TeleMega, serial #1639 with 1.4.1 at Balls in a 2 stager.
Ran into a few problems, as follows:
1. Unable to connect in to TeleDongle in idle mode. I had previously
found that I couldn't get a connection with the TeleMega in channels
7-9, so I was using channel 3 for this flight. I was unable to get a
connection in idle mode in Channel 3. I haven't explored other channel
or tried to re-create this problem.
2. RFI issue with Beelines. The rocket had 4 Beeline trackers in it as follows:
- 1x 100mw 70cm GPS aprox 30" above the TeleMega on 434.350
- 1x 70cm beacon aprox 6" below the TeleMega on 438.850
- 1x 16mw 70cm GPS aprox 48" below the TeleMega on 434.350
- 1x 70cm beacon aprox 48" below the TeleMega on 438.350.
With any combination of the beacons turned on, attempting to startup
the TeleMega in pad mode would result in battery voltage beeps, pad
mode beeps followed by silence, on both the radio (I was listening in
to 434.850 on my FT1DR) and buzzer (ie, no continuity beeps). After
spending an afternoon troubleshooting this, it was determined that
turning on any combination of the Beelines prior to startup would
cause this, but turning them on after the TeleMega was transmitting
didn't result in any adverse affects.
In investigating the manual post-flight, I did note the point about
twisting wires, which I did not do on this flight as I hadn't seen it
previously. I'm not certain that that would have fixed the issue or
not. It would be really really great if there was a separate manual
for each product. It's very easy to miss things when you are
intentionally skipping a significant portion of the manual since it
doesn't relate to the product you are interested in. Additionally,
this is the only time I've seen a suggestion in a manual to twist
wires. This comes in a section of the manual, that in most other
rocket electronics manuals, is reserved for things like "how to attach
wires to screw terminals" and "how to not have battery issues", which
experienced fliers have a tendency to already know and skim.
3. Accel calibration with temp. After spending an afternoon at the pad
troubleshooting the above issue, the rocket sat overnight and was
powered up within 30 minutes of sunrise. I was unable to get the
TeleMega into pad mode until it had been in the sun for 10 minutes, at
which point, it went into pad mode and read a Z accel of -5.1m/s/s. We
left the rocket in the sun for the next 45 minutes and in that time,
the Z accel when it was being held vertically had migrated from -5.1
to -3.3 to -2.2 and was continuing its upward trend. The accelerometer
was previously calibrated at room temp 2 weeks prior to the launch.
4. Angle lockout for staging-not so much a bug as it's probably
exactly what it's designed to do, but I had the telemega setup to do
staging and also staging inhibit on a backup timer. The TeleMega was
to stage if conditions were after burnout, >4 seconds into flight, <25
degrees and >400m/s. I had an additional circuit acting to open the
igniter circuit on a timer I was using for backup. This was to occur
if the angle exceeded 25 degrees at any point. Shortly after the
breakup, the inhibit circuit fired as anticipated. What I didn't
expect was for the fire circuit to fire as the rocket rolled back
within 25 degrees of vertical 2 seconds later. Fortunately the igniter
had already ripped out of the motor, so no harm was done, but this
could have been interesting had it not.
Anyway, hopefully this helps alleviate frustration for at least
someone. I understand the issues now and they're more annoyances that
I can live with than anything. As I hadn't seen them documented
previously, I figured I'd put them out there. Let me know if anyone
has further questions or needs more elaboration.
Thanks,
-Andrew
Web Customer <am-query(a)gag.com> writes:
> I was wondering if there are any updates regarding availability of
> teledongles or teleBTs. What's the latest expected return?
Hi Dave! Thanks for your email and interest in our products.
We've re-designed both TeleDongle and TeleBT to take advantage of an
improved radio chip that gives several dB better receiver sensitivity.
The first production batch of TeleDongle v3.0 are in process right now,
and I hope to have them available for sale sometime (early?) in February.
TeleBT v2.0 first prototypes are also in process, if all goes well I
hope we'll have those for sale a month or so after TeleDongle v3.0.
Bdale
As I recall, APRS is turned off by default on the TeleGPS. It sounds like
APRS isn't turned on; you'll get the AltusMetrum packets (which are much
shorter and don't sound like APRS packets), and the APRS packets at the
interval you've configured via AltOS UI.
-Kevin
From: altusmetrum [mailto:altusmetrum-bounces@lists.gag.com] On Behalf Of
Kurt
Sent: Friday, January 30, 2015 7:30 PM
To: Altus Metrum
Subject: Re: [altusmetrum] Contact Form
Ummmm,
I was under the impression that the TeleGPS could be used a a straight
forward
APRS GPS tracker and used with a D72A. I have the 1.5 v of the programming
software and am not receiving packets. I flashed the unit to 1.5 I can hear
data coming in but doesn't sound anything like an APRS signal. Did I make a
mistake of ordering? I've tried AltOS UI and TeleGPS 1.5. I was able to
connect to the unit and reprogram it, change the frequency etc but I don't
see a direct option for
APRS tracking. Data rates are too fast I believe. Did I mistakenly mislead
myself? Can I return for refund if it's not programmable to a straight GPS
tracker? Kurt KC9LDH
_____
Try going back a version on Firmware - perhaps there's a firmware issue.
-Kevin
-----Original Message-----
From: altusmetrum [mailto:altusmetrum-bounces@lists.gag.com] On Behalf Of
Kurt
Sent: Saturday, January 31, 2015 11:57 AM
To: Altus Metrum
Subject: Re: [altusmetrum] Contact Form
Thanks Terry,
Doug sent me an audio file of his unit and it doesn't sound like anything
mine is producing. I'll try similar settings as yours and see if I can get
it to work. I was programming on a linux computer and I'm going to go
upstairs later and try programming with a Windows 7 machine. I'm not
certain it will make much difference though because when I read my unit, it
will show the setting changes
I input and the latest firmware that I flashed. Kurt KC9LDH
--------------------------------------------
On Sun, 2/1/15, Terry.w7ami <terry.w7ami(a)gmail.com> wrote:
Subject: Re: [altusmetrum] Contact Form
To: altusmetrum(a)lists.gag.com
Date: Sunday, February 1, 2015, 10:08 AM
Kurt,
I have a TeleGPS and the APRS function does work. Here is my
set up configuration and the output of the TNC-X by Coastal
Chipworks showing the raw APRS data as received on a serial port.
Terry
On 1/30/2015 10:47 PM, Kurt wrote:
Ahhh,
I'm rather familiar
with the 72 and I
can hear the data packets coming across from the TeleGPS
tracker. They do not sound like APRS packets and I don't
hear any APRS packets in between. I can hear the GFSK
modulated data that the unit can send out for the
TeleDongle. Frequency and programming is not the issue. I
am dealing with the TeleGPS
not the full service dual
deploy device or
the TeleMega. If it comes across, here is a screen save in
the attachment.
This is the device I'm
using:
http://altusmetrum.org/TeleGPS/
It
says in
the manual that the TeleGPS can send APRS packets. Guess I'll
have to hear from
B'dale
or
Keith. If anyone has had the TeleGPS working with APRS clue
me in on the settings on the device to "turn on" APRS position
reporting. If it can't be done, I'll be in a bind.
Kurt
KC9LDH
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