Weather Balloon Project 20X2

Hi,


This is my first time on here and thought I’d post a link to my latest ‘Weather Balloon Project’. The main electronics are for tracking the payload ‘capsule’ and operating the camera (servo, focus and shutter). This was achieved using a Picaxe 20x2 for the tracking side of things and a 18X for the camera control. The 20X2 basically takes the GPS date and converts it to ‘RTTY’ which is then transmitted back to a scanner on the ground which in turn sends the data to a PC so it can be read off. Because of the simple format of ‘RTTY’ its possible to transmit data well over 50 miles with only a 10mW transmitter, yes sounds crazy but it works. I did try using a standard ‘Pic’ to start with but found the ‘Picaxe’ so much easier to work with and a lot simpler to use.


Have a look at the pictures..

http://www.flickr.com/photos/52455043@N03/


Michael

Michael.

Welcome to the Forum,
and what an excellent project as an introduction.
The aerial photographs are stunning!

Could you please provide some more
information about
a. The circuits, and
b. The programs.

The GPS/RTTY conversion sounds
extremely interesting and useful.

50 miles! Coo!

Ec

Well done and and what a way to introduce yourself to the forum! Those high altitude shots are amazing. The shots on the way down are really good as well - maybe get a few more of those next time as well as the 'fluffy white stuff'

Superb Michael. Well done.

I reckon you'll be able to give sound advice to others who have been trying to do a similar thing.
A lot of these aspects have cropped up and I'm sure your successful experience will be hugely valued by others who've experienced problems.

Lovely job.

Thanks for your comments

Thanks for your comments, glad you liked the pictures I was more than pleased with them, I managed to capture 2700 in all, not an easy job sorting them out as 90 % of them came out well.

Yes, I do agree the pictures on the way down are good, I have more but most of them are above the cloud, the weather was quite poor on the way down and it had started to rain so it was mainly cloud (good old British weather). One of the main problem when the capsule is coming back down to earth is the speed of it, at 21 miles high it starts to fall at around 200 mph when the balloon burst and slows up as the air gets thicker, the aerial gets slammed around but the radio signal can still be detected but the code is all over the place and mostly unreadable.

Sorry in advance if my replies are slow but I’m quite busy at the moment with work and other projects but I’ll try my best.

I’ll upload some more details soon, circuit design and information. RTTY was basically one of the first kind of digital signal transmitting designs but mechanical in operation, just ‘on’ and ‘offs’ OR as they call it ‘Marks’ and ‘Spaces’ I used a code called ‘Baudot’ which is a 5 bit code for each letter of figure transmitted.

I’ve got another two circuits I’m ready to try out, just waiting for the right weather condition before I can launch. One will be measuring inside and outside temperature as well as GPS data and the other design has even more sensors, I’m using a 28X2 on that one so I have a bit more space for code.


Thanks again

Michael

Hi Michael,

Did you get a chance to post the schematic for this project? It looks very interesting.


Lia,