[aprssig] Rocket Tracking

[wa7skg]

Working on getting more information. Big problem is the Kenwood radios 
have been discontinued and are no longer available. It looks like Yaesu 
is still making the FT3DR, but it doesn't look like it actually displays 
anything usable on the screen, making it of little value for on foot 
tracking.

Michael WA7SKG

spam8mybrain via aprssig wrote on 1/31/21 2:07 PM:
> She should Google for "amateur rocketry" and "tracking". There have been 
> lots of discussion about different ways of getting GPS and telemetry 
> down from a rocket to a chase vehicle. Basically, it should be the same 
> as for a high-altitude balloon launch, just the flight stages will be 
> progressing faster.
> 
> The issue is that most handheld radios don't have a good way to display 
> the information, even if the radio alone is capable of decoding and 
> interpreting the data without extra hardware. In that respect, the 
> Kenwood TH-D72 and TH-D74 are probably the best bet, as they can decode 
> APRS and display it on the radio screen, with even a 
> direction-to-station vector based on the receiving radio's own GPS fix 
> versus the APRS position report.
> 
> Of course, this won't work if the rocket is using non-amateur 
> frequencies or not APRS protocol for the data. I actually added support 
> to my APRS client program to support a rocket using an ISM-band radio 
> link to forward the rocket's GPS data as raw NMEA sentences instead of 
> APRS packets.
> 
> Again, she needs to find out more details about the downlink than just 
> "ham radio".
> 
> Andrew, KA2DDO
> author of YAAC ("Yet Another APRS Client")
> 
> 
> -------- Original message --------
> From: wa7skg <wa7skg at wa7skg.com>
> Date: 1/31/21 16:43 (GMT-05:00)
> To: TAPR APRS Mailing List <aprssig at lists.tapr.org>
> Subject: [aprssig] Rocket Tracking
> 
> I recently met a new ham who got her ham license because she is into
> model rockets. She does the large scale ones that go thousands of feet
> high. They have tracking and telemetry systems on board. However, she
> doesn't know what it uses, just that it is ham radio. She wants to get a
> handheld radio that will track her rocket. I'm going to guess this is
> APRS. Anybody familiar with this? Any recommendations of what she should
> get for a radio?
> 
> Thanks.
> 
> 
> -- 
> 73,
> Michael WA7SKG
> 
> "Any day you do not learn one new thing is a wasted day."
>