LORA GPS Beacon for high altitude ballooning

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A light weight, low power LORA GPS Beacon for high altitude ballooning and other tracking duties.

Martin

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Files 2
Components 0
logs 1
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First Flight - March 8, 2020
03/09/2020 at 16:42 • 1 comment

We flew a 3,000 gram balloon filled with almost 200 cubic feet of hydrogen. The plan was to reach 126,000 feet but we only made it to 119,323 feet.
The balloon flew a primary VHF APRS beacon with a twinlead dipole antenna. The payload landed on the VHF antenna and couldn't be heard. The LORA beacon continued operating and lead us to the payload.
I recorded the LORA beacon with my home base station and received most all of the packets until the end. I also copied from my car with a mag mount. All communications stayed above -90 RSSI and the system is supposed to operate down to -120. The beacon antenna was just a 6.5" piece of wire.