{"id":1030,"date":"2013-04-01T13:23:39","date_gmt":"2013-04-01T13:23:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.daveakerman.com\/?p=1030"},"modified":"2013-04-01T13:24:53","modified_gmt":"2013-04-01T13:24:53","slug":"peli-case-tracking-station","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.daveakerman.com\/?p=1030","title":{"rendered":"Peli Case Tracking Station"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Last week I helped out at a balloon launch, providing the tracking and video streaming from the launch site.  Normally I do that stuff from the back of my car, but this time the site was some distance from the car parking so I ended up with my netbook and radio on the ground, with the webcam balanced precariously on a bush.  Not ideal, especially as on the ground nearby was the largest poo since mammoths roamed the Earth.<\/p>\n<p>This got me thinking about setting up a boxed tracking station, and then I remembered that I have an unused Peli case which I bought for my laptop computer when there was a big panic about airline security and all laptops had to be put in the hold.  Well if any laptop of mine is going in a hold then it&#8217;s going in a Peli case, so I bought one and cut the foam to fit.  Then the panic subsided before I had to fly anywhere, so the case stayed unused in my loft.<\/p>\n<p>For a tracking station I need a netbook or laptop, radio receiver with aerial, and a 3G connection.  Ideally I&#8217;d also have a webcam to stream the proceedings, and some spare batteries.  After a while arranging the parts to fit, here&#8217;s what I came up with.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.daveakerman.com\/?attachment_id=1031\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-1031\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/www.daveakerman.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/04\/P1070665-1024x682.jpg\" alt=\"P1070665\" width=\"640\" height=\"426\" class=\"aligncenter size-large wp-image-1031\" srcset=\"http:\/\/www.daveakerman.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/04\/P1070665-1024x682.jpg 1024w, http:\/\/www.daveakerman.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/04\/P1070665-300x200.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>With spare batteries below the netbook:<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.daveakerman.com\/?attachment_id=1032\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-1032\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/www.daveakerman.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/04\/P1070666-1024x682.jpg\" alt=\"P1070666\" width=\"640\" height=\"426\" class=\"aligncenter size-large wp-image-1032\" srcset=\"http:\/\/www.daveakerman.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/04\/P1070666-1024x682.jpg 1024w, http:\/\/www.daveakerman.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/04\/P1070666-300x200.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>And here in &#8220;operation&#8221; mode.  The 3G access point moves from its holder to the top-right slot; the receiver moves to a small cradle that held the audio cable; the webcam just happens to fit perfectly in the Peli case hinge bracket:<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.daveakerman.com\/?attachment_id=1033\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-1033\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/www.daveakerman.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/04\/P1070667-682x1024.jpg\" alt=\"P1070667\" width=\"640\" height=\"960\" class=\"aligncenter size-large wp-image-1033\" srcset=\"http:\/\/www.daveakerman.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/04\/P1070667-682x1024.jpg 682w, http:\/\/www.daveakerman.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/04\/P1070667-200x300.jpg 200w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Last week I helped out at a balloon launch, providing the tracking and video streaming from the launch site. Normally I do that stuff from the back of my car, but this time the site was some distance from the car parking so I ended up with my netbook and [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.daveakerman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1030"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.daveakerman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.daveakerman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.daveakerman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.daveakerman.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1030"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/www.daveakerman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1030\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1035,"href":"http:\/\/www.daveakerman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1030\/revisions\/1035"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.daveakerman.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1030"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.daveakerman.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1030"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.daveakerman.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1030"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}