> As they have suggested, if they are going to be moving to a separate > frequency, then they will need to provide their own receive stations, > and if desired i-gates. It is pretty easy to set up a mobile i-gate on > any frequency using a cellular telephone with a data plan, and a > laptop connected to your receive equipment.
I'm going to steal James regular method of commenting... ;) setting up a mobile I-gate with a mobile internet connection is very easy, although from out last flights, what was amazing to me was that although I ran a mobile I-gate tracking directly under the payload most the time, 99% of all the packets gated were from a single I-Gate ~100km away from the location. This was most definatly due to delays in the mobile internet connection vs. the "wired" internet connection. On a different frequency the mobile gate should have no problem getting all packets into the IS. > I would not plan on using the APRS-IS as my main source of data > recording, and especially not for tracking and recovery of manned > payloads. on one of our last launches, the local mobile system "missed" some telemetry at the beginning of the flight (I forgot to hit record) and the extra packets were added later from a aprs.fi record. althrough from the software packages used for recording and gating (UIView)getting a easy to use record of the flight was "troublesome", but one was obtained by exporting it via a playback through balloontrack to give a very usable record of the flight, as well as nice google earth KML files. > Le Grand Saut has been many years in planning, and attempts to get off > the ground, and hopefully next May will see a successful launch and > recovery. I'm very certain (knock on wood) that the recovery will be the easy part, here's hoping for a successful launch so we can track Michel and return him safely. So far nothing adrenaline wise has matched tracking the lost balloon last year, having the helicopter chase us overhead then swoop down above the road to show us the turnoff to take after he spotted it... x-treme tracking at its best! Garrett Sloan VE6RKY
