Dave Akerman

By far the largest and heaviest component on my previous tracker was the FSA03 GPS receiver, and most of that was the Sarantel antenna. That antenna is amazingly good (it picks up a signal on my desk where there’s very little direct view of the sky), but it is heavy. […]

Here’s an estimate, taken from the telemetry received from both payloads, of the final flight and then float of Cloud3. It managed to get about 1.8km out to sea before turning round and heading towards land, splashing down 500m or so out.

Buzz2 aka Buzznik was my second attempt at getting a payload up in amongst the top of the UK high altitude table for amateur weather balloon launches. Buzz1 burst earlier than planned, though was otherwise a successful flight recovered in a field in Cambridgeshire. Gaining high altitudes is an inexact […]

On Sunday, with great help from some friends, I successfully launched and retrieved the balloon, recovering complete video footage of the entire flight.  Not everything worked (see below), but nevertheless I’m very pleased with the result. The morning started with at around 9am, feeding the helpers with tea, coffee, bacon […]

As well as providing a radio downlink of GPS data so we can track and hopefully retrieve the balloon payload, I want that data logged in detail so I can tell afterwards how high it went and where.  GPS data can be imported into Google Earth for example, to show […]

Got the GPS module connected to the Arduino flight computer today.  Easy to connect except that since it’s an olde module it needs more power than the Arduino’s 3.3V output can manage (130mA needed; 75ma available).  Connected to a software UART to make the debugging easier (PC connects to the […]

In my previous entry I said “I’ve emailed Kodak to ask what the voltage limit is, but I’m not expecting a useful reply.” I got a reply. It wasn’t useful. I asked what the maximum battery voltage is.  “1.5V”.  Well, yes, I know 1.5V cells work, but how much higher […]

Well I thought they had! I’m hoping to use my Kodak Zx1 camcorder to video the entire journey from launch to (crash?) landing.  Running on normal alkaline cells it only manages 45 minutes before switching off, which isn’t nearly enough for the flight.  Besides, alkaline cells are poor at the […]

Today I ordered the parachute (a 48″ model – on the “slow and safe” side for the expected weight), a GPS antenna, power regulator for the GPS, and of course some duct tape!  Every project needs some of that!  It it’s good enough to save the Apollo 13 astronauts, it’s […]