[aprssig] Ideal Tracker Spec (Cross country on 6 AA's)

[Robert Bruninga]

Check out the Microtrackers by Byonics or Argent Data.  But remember,
 at a balloon altitude, the number of digipeaters that will hear the balloon
will cover tens of thousands of miles.  Capable of locating the balloooon
to the nearest 500 miles or so.  Totally useless for a balloon!.

But OK for knowing what city a small beacon is in on the ground.

Bob

On Fri, Dec 7, 2012 at 2:55 PM, R. Rochte <rochte at gmail.com> wrote:
> Bob, et al:
>
> What would you consider the simplest way to build such a system right now?
> Are there off the shelf components with which I could make a bunch of these
> simple APRS "beacons" - and do so inexpensively?
>
> I have a series of small superpressure balloons that are ready to fly and
> just need appropriately sized payloads (mass < 100g).  This would give me
> far more data than the 10 meter CW beacons that I currently plan to fly!
>
> Thanks.
>
> 73,
> Robert  KC8UCH
>
> On Thu, Dec 6, 2012 at 6:37 PM, Robert Bruninga <bruninga at usna.edu> wrote:
>>
>> Don't forget that you can run a micro-kind-of-tracker on 6 AA's for about
>> a month.  It only has to wake up for 1 second every 5 minutes and send a
>> single shortest status packet.  No GPS, no GPS power.  Can fit in a
>> cigarette pack.
>>
>> Then use FINDU or APRS.FI to "vicinity track" you across country.  It
>> should plot a vicinity circle around the digipeaters you are hitting and
>> at least show the town you are in.
>>
>> Lets see. 5W (RF) for one second every 5 minutes at 9 volts is 12 amp
>> seconds per hour for an average power of under 4 mA.  With AA's holding
>> about 2700 mAH, then that is about 700  hours or about a month.  Twice as
>> long if it only powers up in daylight.
>>
>> Bob, Wb4APR
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: aprssig-bounces at tapr.org [mailto:aprssig-bounces at tapr.org] On Behalf
>> Of Matti Aarnio
>> Sent: Thursday, December 06, 2012 6:14 PM
>> To: TAPR APRS Mailing List
>> Subject: Re: [aprssig] Ideal Tracker Spec
>>
>> On Wed, Dec 05, 2012 at 08:24:33AM -0800, Bryan Hoyer wrote:
>> >
>> > We are currently implementing a Tracker Function for our UDR56K
>> > radio with a USB GPS. (For more info on the radio
>> www.nwdigitalradio.com)
>> >
>> > Most trackers are implemented in small micros with limited
>> > resources whereas we have an 800MHz Arm (no floating point)
>> > running Linux 3.x kernel. The project will be open-sourced.
>>
>> Hi,
>>
>> That UDR56K is by no means a limited resources thing - it is
>> both heavy and power hungry if you think about things like
>> balloons.
>>
>> A tracker in my opinnion is something you can put into your
>> pocket or back-pack, and run for days with a set of batteries.
>> Having it in a car pretty much removes the size, mass and energy
>> constraints.
>>
>> A tracker at a balloon is extremely mass and energy budged
>> optimized thing.
>>
>> The UDR56K is a much more powerful thing, which is all fine for
>> running igates, and digis.  It is also really promising platform
>> to do new kinds of transmission protocols.
>>
>> I would love to see about anything to replace that huge heap
>> of technical mistakes known as AX.25-over-Bell202-over-NBFM.
>>
>> Advanced things like:
>>  * more efficient modulations (GMSK et.al.)
>>  * every packet/segment equiped with FEC covering all of
>>    the data (and not only partially like with D-STAR)
>>  * decoding to use soft-decission in FEC resolution
>>    (eats DSPs and FPGAs for breakfast, though)
>>  * CDMA-like multi-carrier operation for igates
>>  * Self-organized TDMA (alike AIS)
>>  * Receivers with legacy modulation support in parallel
>>    to other modes on all channels it receives.
>>  * Multiple central frequencies (channels) receiver
>>  * Multi-antenna receiver ( = diversity receiver)
>>    (Also multi-band if the front-end verter can't fold
>>     6m, 2m, 70cm and so on to single IF.)
>>
>> What I do like is that the thing is split in two cards with
>> a connector in between.  Doing new radio parts will not need
>> replacing the host part.
>>
>> > Bryan Hoyer K7UDR
>>
>> 73 de Matti, OH2MQK
>>
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