Table of Contents
AH3
Aim
- Third UKHASnet test flight
- Based on data from previous flight it appears that temperature has a significant impact on the performance of the node at altitude. The flight of AH3 is to attempt to stabilise the radio's temperature and therefore maintain the nodes frequency and data rate.
Components
- AH3
- Moteino R4 with RFM69HW
- Mosfet/Resistor heater positioned over the radio crystal
- 3x AA lithium batteries
Flight
Easy launch due to good weather, due to high speed jetstream we had the option of either a quick flight with certain landing in the North Sea or a European floater. We elected the quick flight to allow for the longest period of time within range of ground nodes. The payload was launched under an 800g Pawn balloon with an additional old 434 RTTY tracker 'X0'. While the node performed on the ground it very quickly lost contact with the ground nodes on launch. Packets were received for a few minutes and then stopped coming through. Packets were then received by DB02 and DB03 as the payload passed over. Overall the range was very poor with the node reporting that it had only received one packet. At the launch site we investigated the poor performance and found that our ground nodes were regularly freezing up (and so may have missed packets). Looking on a funcube dongle showed a significant interference.
