Tracking a Balloon

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physci
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Joined: Sun May 09, 2010 2:11 pm

Tracking a Balloon

Post by physci »

Hello. I'm a high school science teacher and I'm working with some of my students on a high altitude balloon that will be recovered using a cell phone with accutracking. We already have the phone and accutracking and have tested it out a few times on the ground. This is similar to the projects discussed recently on the web using your software. I have a question concerning cached data. I realize the cell phone will lose signal at some point and we will not be able to track the balloon through it's entire flight (hopefully 80,000 ft to 100,000 ft). However, we should be able to recover it once it comes down. I'm assuming however that the phone will store satellite data. Is this true? I've done some reading on the forums, and it sounds like real time data gets priority. Will older data points automatically load? Are there any options I have to set to get the entire flight path upon recovery? I'm confident we will retrieve it using accutracking, but it would be really nice to know the maximum altitude and complete flight path upon recovery using this software. Is that possible?
ATSupport
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Re: Tracking a Balloon

Post by ATSupport »

Yes it'll cache the GPS data. The cache size is configurable in the settings: http://support.accutracking.com/kb/article/000042
The cached data is uploaded after the realtime data but they won't get removed unless the cache is full.

Make sure you protect the phone with cushions so it won't hit the ground and damage the GPS antenna. Good luck and lease post back your results.
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physci
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Joined: Sun May 09, 2010 2:11 pm

Re: Tracking a Balloon

Post by physci »

Thank you for the reply. I've read something about there being a 60,000 ft GPS limit, however some systems will supply data at higher altitudes. We have a motorola cell phone, I forget the exact model and the phone is at school right now, but do you know if it is common for motorola to put a 60,000 ft cap on GPS data?

Thanks again.
hutch109
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Re: Tracking a Balloon

Post by hutch109 »

Several of those restrictions are DOD (department of defense) restrctions. There are also limits for speed, acceleration, and vertical velocity.

Also since most cell phones use "Assisted GPS", when they do not have cell signal, they also don't have the ability to update the "A-GPS" data, which requires a lot longer data acquisition time... So you could run into a problem with that.

Try it and see, and let us know what happens.

Eric
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