Hi all, I picked up a TeleMega from Apogee 2 weeks ago and have tried to fly it twice since, but have had problems with getting it to enter pad mode.
First try was last weekend, 4" rocket, Telemega configured to transmit APRS every 5 seconds on 434.350, standard out of the box pyro configuration with the antenna up. Everything tests out fine at home-it detects continuity and transmits when it is powered up with antenna up, and not otherwise. I get to the launch site, and it will enter idle mode and beep continuity (I don't recall if it transmitted or not) when it is upright (antenna up, as configured), and if it is antenna down, it would enter pad mode, but not do the continuity beeps. I didn't fly it that weekend, brought it home, and it behaved like it should have. Come this weekend, different rocket, antenna down, Pyro A configured for after drogue, descending + 2 seconds. Other pyros stock, with the main at 500m. Same APRS configuration as the previous flight. Everything once again checks out at home. I get to the site, igniters check out fine during prep. Load it on the pad, it beeps out the 4 beeps for pad mode but doesn't transmit or do continuity beeps when it's vertical. Take it back to the bench, and it works (continuity beeps + APRS) when horizontal. Decide to arm it horizontal to get the APRS going, move it vertically (carefully, yes I know this might not be the brightest idea with charges attached), and launch. I had a stratologger I had confidence would take care of things if it didn't work. I don't know for certain if the apogee charge fired as there were 2 ematches in the same device, but channel A definitely did not fire and the main charge definitely did. I tried to pull data, but just have a 1 minute file with the altitude slowly increasing a few feet (which seems to correspond to it recording the pad raise, I think?). Firmware is from the latest 1.41 release. Only other thing I can think of, which doesn't explain the first attempt, was that I had a 100mw Beeline GPS about 2' away on the same frequency during this weekends flight. There's a 12mw Beeline beacon 500khz away on both flights. Any ideas? Planning on using this for a 2 stage flight at Balls, but don't have any more opportunities to fly it between now and then, so I'm a bit concerned about getting to Black Rock and having things not check out. Thanks for any help or insight, -Andrew Wimmer KD0FTK Andrew Wimmer Department of Electrical Engineering-MS 2015 University of California, Los Angeles MIT Aero/Astro 2012
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