{"id":2295,"date":"2018-02-25T12:54:38","date_gmt":"2018-02-25T12:54:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.daveakerman.com\/?p=2295"},"modified":"2018-02-25T12:54:38","modified_gmt":"2018-02-25T12:54:38","slug":"how-to-choose-a-tracker","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.daveakerman.com\/?p=2295","title":{"rendered":"How To Choose A Tracker"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I sometimes receive emails asking which HAB tracker is best to buy, so here I will compare the ones I have direct knowledge of.\u00a0 First though,\u00a0<strong>if you have or want to have the ability to build and code your own tracker, do that instead!<\/strong>\u00a0 It&#8217;s much more educational to walk that path, rather than take the easy option of buying a ready-made tracker.\u00a0 It&#8217;s also far more rewarding.\u00a0 Or if you prefer, you could build your own tracker but use existing software, or buy a pre-built tracker and write your own software.<\/p>\n<p>If you want to DIY the electronics and\/or software, and if you can you should, then check out these resources:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/ukhas.org.uk\/guides:linkingarduinotontx2\">Connect Arduino to NTX2 Radio Transmitter<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/ukhas.org.uk\/guides:raspberrypi\">General but slightly out of date info on using the Pi as a tracker<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.daveakerman.com\/?p=310\">Tiny tracker based on Arduino Mini Pro<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.daveakerman.com\/?p=2101\">Pi Zero Tracker with live images<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/github.com\/PiInTheSky\/pits\">Software for Pi Tracker<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/github.com\/daveake\/FlexTrack\">Software for Arduino Tracker<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Now for the comparison, including the <a href=\"https:\/\/store.uputronics.com\/index.php?route=product\/product&amp;product_id=52\">PITS (Pi In The Sky) board<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/store.uputronics.com\/index.php?route=product\/product&amp;product_id=96\">PITS Zero<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/store.uputronics.com\/index.php?route=product\/product&amp;product_id=57\">HABDuino<\/a>:<\/p>\n\n<table id=\"wp-table-reloaded-id-4-no-1\" class=\"wp-table-reloaded wp-table-reloaded-id-4\">\n<thead>\n\t<tr class=\"row-1 odd\">\n\t\t<th class=\"column-1\"><\/th><th class=\"column-2\">PITS (Full Size)<\/th><th class=\"column-3\">PITS Zero<\/th><th class=\"column-4\">HABDuino<\/th>\n\t<\/tr>\n<\/thead>\n<tbody>\n\t<tr class=\"row-2 even\">\n\t\t<td class=\"column-1\">Transmits RTTY<\/td><td class=\"column-2\">Yes<\/td><td class=\"column-3\">Yes<\/td><td class=\"column-4\">Optional<\/td>\n\t<\/tr>\n\t<tr class=\"row-3 odd\">\n\t\t<td class=\"column-1\">Transmits LoRa<\/td><td class=\"column-2\">Optional (choose from 434, 868 and 915MHz add-on cards)<\/td><td class=\"column-3\">Yes (choose from 434, 868 and 915MHz modules)<\/td><td class=\"column-4\">No<\/td>\n\t<\/tr>\n\t<tr class=\"row-4 even\">\n\t\t<td class=\"column-1\">Transmits APRS<\/td><td class=\"column-2\">Optional (choose from 144.390MHz (USA), 144.800MHz (Europe) and 145.175MHz (Australia))<\/td><td class=\"column-3\">No<\/td><td class=\"column-4\">Optional (choose from 144.390MHz (USA), 144.800MHz (Europe) and 145.175MHz (Australia))<\/td>\n\t<\/tr>\n\t<tr class=\"row-5 odd\">\n\t\t<td class=\"column-1\">Transmits Live Images<\/td><td class=\"column-2\">Yes, over RTTY or LoRa<\/td><td class=\"column-3\">Yes, over RTTY or LoRa<\/td><td class=\"column-4\">No<\/td>\n\t<\/tr>\n\t<tr class=\"row-6 even\">\n\t\t<td class=\"column-1\">Soldered connections for external DS18B20<\/td><td class=\"column-2\">Yes<\/td><td class=\"column-3\">No<\/td><td class=\"column-4\">No<\/td>\n\t<\/tr>\n\t<tr class=\"row-7 odd\">\n\t\t<td class=\"column-1\">Soldered connections for external BMP085\/BMP180\/BME280<\/td><td class=\"column-2\">Yes<\/td><td class=\"column-3\">No<\/td><td class=\"column-4\">No<\/td>\n\t<\/tr>\n\t<tr class=\"row-8 even\">\n\t\t<td class=\"column-1\">Supports Pi Sense Hat<\/td><td class=\"column-2\">Yes<\/td><td class=\"column-3\">No<\/td><td class=\"column-4\">No<\/td>\n\t<\/tr>\n\t<tr class=\"row-9 odd\">\n\t\t<td class=\"column-1\">Software Predicts Landing Position During Descent<\/td><td class=\"column-2\">Yes<\/td><td class=\"column-3\">Yes<\/td><td class=\"column-4\">No<\/td>\n\t<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I sometimes receive emails asking which HAB tracker is best to buy, so here I will compare the ones I have direct knowledge of.\u00a0 First though,\u00a0if you have or want to have the ability to build and code your own tracker, do that instead!\u00a0 It&#8217;s much more educational to walk [&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\/2295"}],"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=2295"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.daveakerman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2295\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2296,"href":"http:\/\/www.daveakerman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2295\/revisions\/2296"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.daveakerman.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2295"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.daveakerman.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2295"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.daveakerman.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2295"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}