[McHUG] Checkpoint for Timonium

[Peter Morton]

Okay.  I'll plan for Sunday.  Let me know when and where.

-Pete

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Rich Mitchell" <geobra at att.net>
To: "MicroController Ham User Group - Physical Computing for HamRadio" 
<mchug at mailman.qth.net>
Sent: Wednesday, March 10, 2010 1:31 PM
Subject: Re: [McHUG] Checkpoint for Timonium


> Pete,
>
> The shield thing would be just for an indoor presentation of shields and 
> Arduinos.  But I'm guessing we will also have presentations on PICetSats 
> and the PICetSat launch from our hamfest.  Toward the end of the time we 
> will be heading outside to launch a PICetSat Lite - similar to our hamfest 
> BUT with a pressure sensor so we get an accurate idea of its altitude. 
> The plan I think (Pat is the planner) is to track it with Arrow antennas 
> and ham radio gear, like last time.  I think Pat will also be running the 
> HT or whatever receiver output into a laptop for automatic decoding.
>
> If Pat is available Sunday, that might be a time to know exactly how all 
> this is coming down.
>
> By the way, if I get my Arduino receiver shield working right I may just 
> take it outside and hook it up to an Arrow Antenna.  Those little 
> transmitters weren't supposed to have much range beyond 500 feet either. 
> If it does work I'll have to add some EEPROM to the shield to record the 
> events.
>
> Rich
> --
> McHUG - Physical Computing ;)
> MicroController Ham User Group
>
> -------------- Original message from "Peter Morton" 
> <mortonph at comcast.net>: -------------- 
>
>
>> Rich-
>>
>> It looks like you've bitten off a lot to chew over the next 17 days. I
>> suspect you will experience a number of sleepless nights.
>>
>> The first thing I am wondering about is what is the goal for the Hamfest?
>> Just to transmit across the room and demo the shields? Or, do you want to
>> launch a balloon, too?
>>
>> The SparkFun receiver is good to only 500 feet or so. If you use antennas
>> with an additional 12 dB of gain, you've only increased the range by a
>> factor of 4 or to 2000 feet. I'm not sure, with the limited reading I've
>> done, that these receiver-transmitter combinations will work over the 
>> ranges
>> anticipated for a balloon-launch application.
>>
>> I haven't done any programming in the past 14 to 15 months or so. And, at
>> my age, I forget things faster than I learn. But, I'd be glad to try to 
>> get
>> the ol' brain working again. Let me know.
>>
>> For a balloon launch, I would suggest using my FT897 (can operate using a
>> car battery or the UPS battery I bought from Chuck) in AM mode and 
>> passing
>> the audio to a PC for recording, and decode simultaneously using your
>> Arduio system. You can play back later from the PC if you have any 
>> missing
>> data.
>>
>> One of these days, I'm going to build a board with a GPS module on it.
>>
>> -Pete, W3GVX
>>
>> ----- Original Message ----- 
>> From: "Rich Mitchell"
>> To: "MicroController Ham User Group - Physical Computing for HamRadio"
>>
>> Sent: Wednesday, March 10, 2010 11:11 AM
>> Subject: Re: [McHUG] Checkpoint for Timonium
>>
>> [snip]
>>
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