--- /dev/null
+# Using Altus Metrum Products
+
+## Being Legal ##
+
+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.
+
+## In the Rocket ##
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+## On the Ground ##
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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...
+
+So, to recap, on the ground the hardware you'll need includes:
+
+* an antenna and feedline
+* a TeleDongle
+* a notebook computer
+* optionally, a handheld GPS receiver
+* optionally, an HT or receiver covering 435 Mhz
+
+## Data Analysis ##
+
+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 view a standard set of plots showing the altitude, acceleration, and
+velocity of the rocket during flight. You can also export a data file useable
+with Google Maps and Google Earth for visualizing the flight path in two or
+three dimensions.
+
+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.
+
+## Future Plans ##
+
+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.
+
+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.
+