Post by Francis Bartholomew - OIT on Jul 20, 2017 10:29:24 GMT -7
On July 18th, we launched a balloon out of Detroit Lake, OR - the system tracked very well for about the first 25 minutes. However, the further out the balloon went, the less consistent the tracking became. Specifically, I could see the payload way up in the sky, and I attempted to go to the manual settings tab and use the 'trim' functionality to tighten up the tracking. Clicking the <- button caused the antenna to point straight up. We had to hit the tracking button again to reorient in the 'sort of general direction'. The up and down trim functionality seems to work ok, but I need the left and right trim to work.
Note: the iridium system is absolutely working like a champ, now that we've built our payload following the proper distance between the tracking box and the streaming video box, 12 or so feet away. Also, the streaming payload is collecting video in 10 minute chunks, and is *amazing*. We got to 101,000 feet when the balloon went, and the trip up was phenomenal. We also had such great experience with the iridium updates to the BOREALIS website that we were at the location where the payload landed within 20 minutes of that landing (not counting the 3 hours it took us to hike around that area and fish the payload out of a tree)
Note: the iridium system is absolutely working like a champ, now that we've built our payload following the proper distance between the tracking box and the streaming video box, 12 or so feet away. Also, the streaming payload is collecting video in 10 minute chunks, and is *amazing*. We got to 101,000 feet when the balloon went, and the trip up was phenomenal. We also had such great experience with the iridium updates to the BOREALIS website that we were at the location where the payload landed within 20 minutes of that landing (not counting the 3 hours it took us to hike around that area and fish the payload out of a tree)
