Equipment and Procedure Archive

This section of the site is currently under construction. Please excuse the mess.

Old Site Info (This will be properly archived in the near future):

Past Team Members

Name	Role	Call Sign	Email
Silas Van Natter	Team Lead	KF7ODQ	vann8699@vandals.uidaho.edu
Shaheer Khan			khan4036@vandals.uidaho.edu
Joshua Van Patten	Assistant Lead	KF70DR	vanp3221@vandals.uidaho.edu
Zach Hacker		KF7VCP	hack3582@vandals.uidaho.edu
Brian Cheldelin	Adviser	KF7ODS	chel4191@vandals.uidaho.edu
Victor Zarate		KF7VCQ	zara3609@vandals.uidaho.edu

Past Projects

Project Name	Team Members	Description
Micro-Trak Shell	Zach	To fabricate one Micro-Trak inclosures from fiberglass covered foam.
Preservation of Knowledge -Lithium Ion Batteries	Silas	To document background information and handling procedures for lithium ion batteries.
Packet Path	Josh	To select appropriate settings for Micro-Trak transmissions.
Micro-Trak Power	Silas	To experimentally measure how much power a Micro-Trak uses and transmits.
Preservation of Knowledge -Antennas	Victor	To document the procedure for fabricating J-Pole antennas, including how to crimp SMA connectors.
Altitude Switcher	Victor	To create a circuit that switches the Micro-Trak to transmit mode 2 above 5,000 ft. Mode two will be set on a less frequent transmit interval to decrease flooding the APRS network.

Current Projects

Project Name	Team Members	Description
Comm Tutorial	Austin, Zach	To write tutorial explaining Comm team's job during pre-launch, launch, and post-launch.
Micro-Trak Shell	Zach	To fabricate one Micro-Trak inclosures from fiberglass covered foam.
Micro-Trak Power	Zach	To experimentally measure how much power a Micro-Trak uses and transmits.
Preservation of Knowledge -Antennas	Victor	To document the procedure for fabricating J-Pole antennas, including how to crimp SMA connectors.
Altitude Switcher	Victor	To create a circuit that switches the Micro-Trak to transmit mode 2 above 5,000 ft. Mode two will be set on a less frequent transmit interval to decrease flooding the APRS network.

Projects under consideration

Project Name	Team Members	Description
IRIS [Intelligent Reporting Information System]	Silas	We are looking into the feasibility of interfacing an Arduino with a ground computer through a ham radio serial connection. This will provide us with tracking information and real time system status. Information transmitted from the balloon would include GPS location, battery temperature, and battery voltage.
Drone Digipeeter	Zach	Normally when the balloon lands on the ground hills block the radio transmissions. We are looking into placing one of our radios into a large remote controlled air plain that can be launched as the balloon is coming down to put a repeater in the sky to retransmit balloon telemetry to the ground recovery crew.
Balloon voice repeater		Launch day is never spent without some communication blackout. We may look into putting a low power voice repeater on the balloon to assist in radio communication.

This will grow to a comprehensive database of everything we know.
What we are flying with now:

Byonics Micro-Trak 8000 FA

The Micro-Trak 8000 FA is a frequency agile 2-meter transmitter with an adjustable 300mW to 10W RF power amplifier that provides an easy way to build a small APRS tracker.

VSWR Readings Spring 2013
*Antenna*	*Frequency*	*VSWR*
BumbleBee	146.39	1.98
	144.39	12.28
Wisker	146.39	1.89
	144.39	2.14
J2	146.39	2.78
	144.39	1.85
J4	146.39	1.86
	144.39	2.19

VSWR, or voltage standing wave ratio, is a measurment of how efficent antennas are at transmitting. A VSWR of 1.00 is a perfect transmission with no power being bounced back from the antenna. A VSWR of infinity means that all the transmitted power is bounced back. High VSWR not only results in poor transmit range but also can damage a transmitter.

Altitude Switch

This circuit is to switch the Micro-Trak transmit mode to a more conservative setting when at high altitudes.

Some fun things we are looking at:

Trackuino

This is an APRS tracker shield for the Arduino platform. It features on-board GPS and radio transmitter, so the only external components required are the GPS and VHF antennas. It was designed primarily to track high altitude balloons, so it has other handy features like reading temperature sensors and a buzzer for acoustic location.

Useful Resources:

dBm to watt conversion table

Power (dBm)	Power (W)
-30 dBm	0.0000010 W
-20 dBm	0.0000100 W
-10 dBm	0.0001000 W
0 dBm	0.0010000 W
1 dBm	0.0012589 W
2 dBm	0.0015849 W
3 dBm	0.0019953 W
4 dBm	0.0025119 W
5 dBm	0.0031628 W
6 dBm	0.0039811 W
7 dBm	0.0050119 W
8 dBm	0.0063096 W
9 dBm	0.0079433 W
10 dBm	0.0100000 W
20 dBm	0.1000000 W
30 dBm	1.0000000 W
40 dBm	10.0000000 W
50 dBm	100.0000000 W