+commit 6629ec52def8917ad033847812a1adc4c3e9c947
+Author: Bdale Garbee <bdale@gag.com>
+Date: Thu Apr 8 12:42:47 2010 -0600
+
+ lose the url entirely for now
+
+commit a1539a075a0cc79c9122fea878d9a20ee722a18c
+Author: Bdale Garbee <bdale@gag.com>
+Date: Thu Apr 8 12:41:42 2010 -0600
+
+ update changelogs for Debian build
+
+commit 934434ffb3514fe9ff95692784750d7c5217a5d3
+Author: Bdale Garbee <bdale@gag.com>
+Date: Thu Apr 8 12:41:28 2010 -0600
+
+ fix typo in url
+
+commit 8a067cd0eebbec313fc39086747ef618f2d1cf37
+Author: Bdale Garbee <bdale@gag.com>
+Date: Thu Apr 8 12:36:18 2010 -0600
+
+ update changelogs for Debian build
+
+commit 05ad58389fa3814ecb56344bf4ec3a3e025920a2
+Author: Bdale Garbee <bdale@gag.com>
+Date: Thu Apr 8 12:34:54 2010 -0600
+
+ need another build dep
+
+commit 6fbdc7037db185f03bd5ff96b9d9320646572df7
+Author: Bdale Garbee <bdale@gag.com>
+Date: Thu Apr 8 12:28:49 2010 -0600
+
+ update changelogs for Debian build
+
+commit 8f1d47e9cd61738e516d15fc97d5730d80611e87
+Author: Bdale Garbee <bdale@gag.com>
+Date: Thu Apr 8 12:28:20 2010 -0600
+
+ update changelogs for Debian build
+
+commit c66eebad323e4572bb7cc23bc476ee144f03e9b8
+Author: Bdale Garbee <bdale@gag.com>
+Date: Sat Apr 3 08:02:44 2010 -0600
+
+ rewrite urls in docbook format
+
+commit 8c600abf87c95f8f214b5e56ff6eab955795dff5
+Author: Bdale Garbee <bdale@gag.com>
+Date: Thu Apr 1 23:56:47 2010 -0600
+
+ crudely incorporate "day in the life" info from web page
+
+commit 53ca3f98aeb70cb780031fee788de950e4388cf6
+Author: Bdale Garbee <bdale@gag.com>
+Date: Thu Apr 1 23:39:42 2010 -0600
+
+ tweak copyright assertion
+
+commit 76768804e68ed09421d7a48cb0b390f102ce2d76
+Author: Bdale Garbee <bdale@gag.com>
+Date: Tue Mar 30 23:26:35 2010 -0600
+
+ make lintian happy
+
+commit eb3cc3e9b60ec23acbb7d797affa743d671801ab
+Author: Bdale Garbee <bdale@gag.com>
+Date: Tue Mar 30 23:19:48 2010 -0600
+
+ update changelogs for Debian build
+
commit 00f49c8fb0aa38331360bdb85c32bcebe60dcdc3
Author: Bdale Garbee <bdale@gag.com>
Date: Tue Mar 30 23:19:07 2010 -0600
Priority: extra
Maintainer: Bdale Garbee <bdale@gag.com>
Uploaders: Keith Packard <keithp@keithp.com>
-Build-Depends: debhelper (>= 7), autoconf, automake, flite1-dev, gawk, libasound2-dev, libgconf2-dev, libglade2-dev, libgtk2.0-dev, libreadline-dev, libusb-1.0-0-dev, nickle, sdcc, libplplot-dev, xsltproc, fop, docbook-xsl
+Build-Depends: debhelper (>= 7), autoconf, automake, flite1-dev, gawk, libasound2-dev, libgconf2-dev, libglade2-dev, libgtk2.0-dev, libreadline-dev, libusb-1.0-0-dev, nickle, sdcc, libplplot-dev, xsltproc, fop, docbook-xml, docbook-xsl
Standards-Version: 3.8.4
Homepage: http://altusmetrum.org/AltOS
</para>
</chapter>
<chapter>
- <title>System Overview</title>
- <para>
- Placeholder.
- </para>
- </chapter>
- <chapter>
- <title>System Overview</title>
- <para>
- Placeholder.
- </para>
+ <title>Using Altus Metrum Products</title>
+ <section>
+ <title>Being Legal</title>
+ <para>
+ First off, in the US, you need an [amateur radio license](../Radio) or
+ other authorization to legally operate the radio transmitters that are part
+ of our products.
+ </para>
+ <section>
+ <title>In the Rocket</title>
+ <para>
+ In the rocket itself, you just need a [TeleMetrum](../TeleMetrum) board and
+ a LiPo rechargeable battery. An 860mAh battery weighs less than a 9V
+ alkaline battery, and will run a [TeleMetrum](../TeleMetrum) for hours.
+ </para>
+ <para>
+ By default, we ship TeleMetrum with a simple wire antenna. If your
+ electronics bay or the airframe it resides within is made of carbon fiber,
+ which is opaque to RF signals, you may choose to have an SMA connector
+ installed so that you can run a coaxial cable to an antenna mounted
+ elsewhere in the rocket.
+ </para>
+ </section>
+ <section>
+ <title>On the Ground</title>
+ <para>
+ To receive the data stream from the rocket, you need an antenna and short
+ feedline connected to one of our [TeleDongle](../TeleDongle) units. The
+ TeleDongle in turn plugs directly into the USB port on a notebook
+ computer. Because TeleDongle looks like a simple serial port, your computer
+ does not require special device drivers... just plug it in.
+ </para>
+ <para>
+ Right now, all of our application software is written for Linux. However,
+ because we understand that many people run Windows or MacOS, we are working
+ on a new ground station program written in Java that should work on all
+ operating systems.
+ </para>
+ <para>
+ After the flight, you can use the RF link to extract the more detailed data
+ logged in the rocket, or you can use a mini USB cable to plug into the
+ TeleMetrum board directly. Pulling out the data without having to open up
+ the rocket is pretty cool! A USB cable is also how you charge the LiPo
+ battery, so you'll want one of those anyway... the same cable used by lots
+ of digital cameras and other modern electronic stuff will work fine.
+ </para>
+ <para>
+ If your rocket lands out of sight, you may enjoy having a hand-held GPS
+ receiver, so that you can put in a waypoint for the last reported rocket
+ position before touch-down. This makes looking for your rocket a lot like
+ Geo-Cacheing... just go to the waypoint and look around starting from there.
+ </para>
+ <para>
+ You may also enjoy having a ham radio "HT" that covers the 70cm band... you
+ can use that with your antenna to direction-find the rocket on the ground
+ the same way you can use a Walston or Beeline tracker. This can be handy
+ if the rocket is hiding in sage brush or a tree, or if the last GPS position
+ doesn't get you close enough because the rocket dropped into a canyon, or
+ the wind is blowing it across a dry lake bed, or something like that... Keith
+ and Bdale both currently own and use the Yaesu VX-6R at launches.
+ </para>
+ <para>
+ So, to recap, on the ground the hardware you'll need includes:
+ <orderedlist inheritnum='inherit' numeration='arabic'>
+ <listitem>
+ an antenna and feedline
+ </listitem>
+ <listitem>
+ a TeleDongle
+ </listitem>
+ <listitem>
+ a notebook computer
+ </listitem>
+ <listitem>
+ optionally, a handheld GPS receiver
+ </listitem>
+ <listitem>
+ optionally, an HT or receiver covering 435 Mhz
+ </listitem>
+ </orderedlist>
+ </para>
+ <para>
+ The best hand-held commercial directional antennas we've found for radio
+ direction finding rockets are from
+ <ulink url="http://www.arrowantennas.com/" >
+ Arrow Antennas.
+ </ulink>
+The 440-3 and 440-5 are both good choices for finding a
+TeleMetrum-equipped rocket when used with a suitable 70cm HT.
+ </para>
+ </section>
+ <section>
+ <title>Data Analysis</title>
+ <para>
+ Our software makes it easy to log the data from each flight, both the
+ telemetry received over the RF link during the flight itself, and the more
+ complete data log recorded in the DataFlash memory on the TeleMetrum
+ board. Once this data is on your computer, our postflight tools make it
+ easy to quickly get to the numbers everyone wants, like apogee altitude,
+ max acceleration, and max velocity. You can also generate and view a
+ standard set of plots showing the altitude, acceleration, and
+ velocity of the rocket during flight. And you can even export a data file
+ useable with Google Maps and Google Earth for visualizing the flight path
+ in two or three dimensions!
+ </para>
+ <para>
+ Our ultimate goal is to emit a set of files for each flight that can be
+ published as a web page per flight, or just viewed on your local disk with
+ a web browser.
+ </para>
+ </section>
+ <section>
+ <title>Future Plans</title>
+ <para>
+ In the future, we intend to offer "companion boards" for the rocket that will
+ plug in to TeleMetrum to collect additional data, provide more pyro channels,
+ and so forth. A reference design for a companion board will be documented
+ soon, and will be compatible with open source Arduino programming tools.
+ </para>
+ <para>
+ We are also working on the design of a hand-held ground terminal that will
+ allow monitoring the rocket's status, collecting data during flight, and
+ logging data after flight without the need for a notebook computer on the
+ flight line. Particularly since it is so difficult to read most notebook
+ screens in direct sunlight, we think this will be a great thing to have.
+ </para>
+ <para>
+ Because all of our work is open, both the hardware designs and the software,
+ if you have some great idea for an addition to the current Altus Metrum family,
+ feel free to dive in and help! Or let us know what you'd like to see that
+ we aren't already working on, and maybe we'll get excited about it too...
+ </para>
+ </section>
+ </section>
</chapter>
</book>
projects / fw / altos / commitdiff