On Sun, 2003-11-30 at 23:05, JÃ$ÃÃ MÃÂÃhÃÂ$ÃÃ wrote: > >including several licensed Amateur Radio operators... > > Just a thought... > It seams that the Ham radio used for Balloon v1.0 had a short range, > worked only at 1200 baud, require the balloon to constantly be tracked, > required a line of site to the balloon, and was unreliable. > > Why not use GPRS (General Packet Radio Service)? A GPRS phone would > provide a faster connection. And instead of following your balloon > every step of the way you could track the balloon from any location you > want via the internet. A GRPS phone connection is always on, but under > most plans you only get charged by the amount of data you transfer. > > I just wonder if it would work at 100,000 feet.
I have not investigated GRPS, but from what you said it seems like it has some kind of recurring cost involved. Amateur Radio (aside from the initial investment of equipment) is free to use. It already has establish protocols and frequencies for transmitting GPS information, and 1200 baud is actually quite fast when that's all that you're transmitting. In terms of line of sight, when something is 100,000 ft., the footprint is over 500 *miles* in diameter, so I don't think it will be much of a problem. All of the organizations currently doing this type of thing use amateur bands, so I figure it must have some merit. Plus, there is a fairly large community of people which are involved in Amateur Radio, and I see that as a potential resource. Hyrum KD7YQK ____________________ BYU Unix Users Group http://uug.byu.edu/ ___________________________________________________________________ List Info: http://uug.byu.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/uug-list
