Hal F8 01 Com Rev
General Team Assessment
Strengths
- Capsules were tracked by Steptoe Butte, Chase Car, I-Gates, and Ground Station successfully.
- Remove for flight tags made it pretty impossible to forget to remove them all (go Matt!)
- Directional antennas for 2m (three element cubical quad) and 70cm (8 element quagis) greatly improved communication quality and reliability. Communications were made from the payload after it landed on the ground!
- Ginger was a success!
Improvements
- The bus was unable to track due to poor coordination with highschool
- Poor signal propagation to the launch site ed to a balloon launch before the Steptoe team was ready to track. Cliff has a mobile 35W amplifier module that should help this problem.
Insights
- Steptoe butte is a great place to work from, but the hamshack said they could hear ginger's packets loud and clear. Maybe a duplicate receiver near the observatory would allow for the data to be posted in realtime to an internet database?
- TMP cut out at -30C. We need to investigate why.
Ginger Assessment
Strengths
- Packets were heard loud and clear from hamshack
- All data routing worked perfectly
- Link was never lost, once antennas were aimed it even worked on the ground
Improvements
- Allspice Node TMP cut out at -30 C
- Wind was a problem for the antennas, mount on a single mast with a way to lock in place.
Insights
- Never trust datasheet sensor equations. Always manually calibrate sensors!
