1 # Using Altus Metrum Products
5 All Altus Metrum products are available from the
6 [Garbee and Garbee](http://auric.gag.com) web
7 store. [TeleMetrum](TeleMetrum/) starter kits are also available from
8 [Apogee Components](http://www.apogeerockets.com/Altus_Metrum_GPS.asp)
9 and [Australian Rocketry](http://www.ausrocketry.com/shop/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=111&products_id=4302).
13 In the US, you need an [amateur radio license](../Radio) or other
14 authorization to legally operate the radio transmitters that are part
15 of our products. Rules vary in other countries.
19 In the rocket itself, you just need a [TeleMetrum](../TeleMetrum) board and
20 a LiPo rechargeable battery. An 900mAh battery weighs less than a 9V
21 alkaline battery, and will run a [TeleMetrum](../TeleMetrum) for hours.
23 [This document](InsertSheet.pdf) contains notes about how to install a
24 flight computer such as TeleMetrum in a rocket.
26 By default, we ship TeleMetrum with a simple wire antenna. If your
27 electronics bay or the airframe it resides within is made of carbon fiber,
28 which is nearly opaque to RF signals, you may choose to have an SMA connector
29 installed so that you can run a coaxial cable to an antenna mounted
30 elsewhere in the rocket.
34 To receive the data stream from the rocket, you need an antenna and short
35 feedline connected to one of our [TeleDongle](../TeleDongle) units. The
36 TeleDongle in turn plugs directly into the USB port on a notebook
37 computer. Because TeleDongle looks like a simple serial port, your computer
38 does not require special device drivers... just plug it in.
40 All of our application software is written in Java, and supports Linux,
41 Windows, and MacOS systems equivalently. See our [AltOS](/AltOS) page
42 for more details and to download a copy.
44 After the flight, you can use the RF link to extract the more detailed data
45 logged in the rocket, or you can use a mini USB cable to plug into the
46 TeleMetrum board directly. Pulling out the data without having to open up
47 the rocket is pretty cool! A USB cable is also how you charge the LiPo
48 battery, so you'll want one of those anyway... the same cable used by lots
49 of digital cameras and other modern electronic stuff will work fine.
51 If your rocket lands out of sight, you may enjoy having a hand-held GPS
52 receiver, so that you can put in a waypoint for the last reported rocket
53 position before touch-down. This makes looking for your rocket a lot like
54 Geo-Cacheing... just go to the waypoint and look around starting from there.
56 You may also enjoy having a ham radio "HT" that covers the 70cm band... you
57 can use that with your antenna to direction-find the rocket on the ground
58 the same way you can use a Walston or Beeline tracker. This can be handy
59 if the rocket is hiding in sage brush or a tree, or if the last GPS position
60 doesn't get you close enough because the rocket dropped into a canyon, or
61 the wind is blowing it across a dry lake bed, or something like that... Keith
62 and Bdale both currently own and use the
63 [Yaesu VX-6R](http://yaesu.com/indexVS.cfm?cmd=DisplayProducts&ProdCatID=111&encProdID=4C6F204F6FEBB5BAFA58BCC1C131EAC0&DivisionID=65&isArchived=0)
66 So, to recap, on the ground the hardware you'll need includes:
68 * an antenna and feedline
71 * optionally, a handheld GPS receiver
72 * optionally, an HT or receiver covering 435 Mhz
74 The best hand-held commercial directional antennas we've found for radio
75 direction finding rockets are from
76 [Arrow Antennas](http://www.arrowantennas.com/). The 440-3 and 440-5 are
77 both good choices for finding a TeleMetrum-equipped rocket when used with
80 Find more information about antennas, HTs, and getting a ham radio license
81 on our [Radio](../Radio) page.
85 Our software makes it easy to log the data from each flight, both the
86 telemetry received over the RF link during the flight itself, and the more
87 complete data log recorded in the DataFlash memory on the TeleMetrum
88 board. Once this data is on your computer, you can replay the flight in
89 real time, get plots and summary information from your data,
90 export a CSV file for further manipulation in your favorite spreadsheet,
91 or export a KML file so that you can visualize the flight path in three
92 dimensions with [Google Earth](http://www.google.com/earth)!
94 Our ultimate goal is to emit a set of files for each flight that can be
95 published as a web page per flight, or just viewed on your local disk with
100 In the future, we intend to offer "companion boards" for the rocket that will
101 plug in to TeleMetrum to collect additional data, provide more pyro channels,
102 and so forth. A reference design for a companion board will be documented
103 soon, and will be compatible with open source Arduino programming tools.
105 We are also working on the design of a hand-held ground terminal that will
106 allow monitoring the rocket's status, collecting data during flight, and
107 logging data after flight without the need for a notebook computer on the
108 flight line. Particularly since it is so difficult to read most notebook
109 screens in direct sunlight, we think this will be a great thing to have.
111 We're also contemplating other altimeter designs with either more or less
112 features than TeleMetrum aimed at different needs within and beyond the rocket
115 Because all of our work is open, both the hardware designs and the software,
116 if you have some great idea for an addition to the current Altus Metrum family,
117 feel free to dive in and help! Or let us know what you'd like to see that
118 we aren't already working on, and maybe we'll get excited about it too...
projects / web / altusmetrum / blob