[Canberrauav] Sunday testing results
Stephen Dade stephen_dade at hotmail.com 
Sun May 27 23:10:38 EST 2012 

Hi everyone

Today Jack, Tridge, Matt, Chris and myself did some long-range testing of
the 5.8GHz and 900MHz radio links.

Our results were:

Mt Pleasant has significant interference at 900 MHz. So much so that we
couldn't get any 900 MHz link to the UAV from the site. Whether or not this
interference is from a legal/illegal emitter is debatable. I will check the
databases at work tomorrow to see if there's a licence for a 915-928 MHz
emitter in the area.

The ground station was moved to Red Hill. This proved to be a good site. In
addition to no radio interference there's tables, chairs and a cafe nearby
:)

The settings on the 900 MHz radio are unable to be remotely changed. This
led to Tridge/Matt doing laps between CMAC and Mt Pleasant.

We discovered that the CyberMugin is currently using the atmega1280 APM,
rather than (what we assumed to be) the atmega2560 APM. They require
different compilation options if you want the atmega to flash correctly.

In the end, we did get decent telemetry and photos through the radio links
to Red Hill. The software for the radio links is going to have to be altered
to cope with dropped packets more gracefully though.

The avionics battery (the lead acid battery) almost ran flat during the
flight, causing voltage dropouts. This resulted in the pandaboard rebooting
mid-flight. We are going to fit a voltage/current sensor to this battery for
future flights. It should be noted that the battery should have lasted
longer. We're not sure why the it was depleted so quickly.

Thanks

Stephen

[Canberrauav] Sunday testing results
Jack Pittar jpittar at bigpond.net.au 
Mon May 28 17:20:58 EST 2012 

On top of Mt Pleasant there are some antennas that look like mobile phone
antennas. As such, they may be transmitting full power primarily in their
allotted band, and only transmitting a relatively small amount in the LIPD
band. Although this is enough to wipe us out, it might be calculated to be
within limits at the range of any local inhabitation.
The 7 amp hour Sealed Lead Acid battery was purchased new from Jaycar last
week and fully charged before the event. A discharge test last night showed
it had a bit more than half the advertised capacity when an estimation is
made for being discharged at more than the 20 hour rate. We did a fair bit
of powering systems on the ground before the flight.
As with any of this experimental work, it always takes a lot longer than you
expect. I drove into CMAC at about 830 am, and locked up at about 4:30 pm.
The actual flight time was about 15 minutes.



[Jack Pittar]  -----Original Message-----
From: canberrauav-bounces at canberrauav.com
[mailto:canberrauav-bounces at canberrauav.com]On Behalf Of Stephen Dade
Sent: Sunday, 27 May 2012 11:11 PM
To: canberrauav at canberrauav.com
Subject: [Canberrauav] Sunday testing results

  Hi everyone

  Today Jack, Tridge, Matt, Chris and myself did some long-range testing of
the 5.8GHz and 900MHz radio links.

  Our results were:

  Mt Pleasant has significant interference at 900 MHz. So much so that we
couldn't get any 900 MHz link to the UAV from the site. Whether or not this
interference is from a legal/illegal emitter is debatable. I will check the
databases at work tomorrow to see if there's a licence for a 915-928 MHz
emitter in the area.

  The ground station was moved to Red Hill. This proved to be a good site.
In addition to no radio interference there's tables, chairs and a cafe
nearby :)

  The settings on the 900 MHz radio are unable to be remotely changed. This
led to Tridge/Matt doing laps between CMAC and Mt Pleasant.

  We discovered that the CyberMugin is currently using the atmega1280 APM,
rather than (what we assumed to be) the atmega2560 APM. They require
different compilation options if you want the atmega to flash correctly.

  In the end, we did get decent telemetry and photos through the radio links
to Red Hill. The software for the radio links is going to have to be altered
to cope with dropped packets more gracefully though.

  The avionics battery (the lead acid battery) almost ran flat during the
flight, causing voltage dropouts. This resulted in the pandaboard rebooting
mid-flight. We are going to fit a voltage/current sensor to this battery for
future flights. It should be noted that the battery should have lasted
longer. We're not sure why the it was depleted so quickly.

  Thanks

  Stephen

[Canberrauav] Sunday testing results
Stephen Dade stephen_dade at hotmail.com 
Tue May 29 00:03:12 EST 2012 

Further to Jack's comments, I can confirm that there's a mobile phone tower
there (operated by Vodafone/Telstra) using the 900-915.5MHz bands (among
others). It is most likely that there's some "leakage" into other bands. The
full list is at:
http://web.acma.gov.au/pls/radcom/site_search.site_lookup?pSITE_ID=130647

I'll check for other mobile phone towers near Kingaroy airport.

I couldn't find any obvious (licensed) radiocommunications transmitters
around Mt Pleasant (or Kingaroy for that matter) in the 915-928MHz and
5.8-5.9GHz bands.

-Stephen

 

From: canberrauav-bounces at canberrauav.com
[mailto:canberrauav-bounces at canberrauav.com] On Behalf Of Jack Pittar
Sent: Monday, 28 May 2012 5:21 PM
To: canberrauav at canberrauav.com
Subject: Re: [Canberrauav] Sunday testing results

On top of Mt Pleasant there are some antennas that look like mobile phone
antennas. As such, they may be transmitting full power primarily in their
allotted band, and only transmitting a relatively small amount in the LIPD
band. Although this is enough to wipe us out, it might be calculated to be
within limits at the range of any local inhabitation. 

The 7 amp hour Sealed Lead Acid battery was purchased new from Jaycar last
week and fully charged before the event. A discharge test last night showed
it had a bit more than half the advertised capacity when an estimation is
made for being discharged at more than the 20 hour rate. We did a fair bit
of powering systems on the ground before the flight.

As with any of this experimental work, it always takes a lot longer than you
expect. I drove into CMAC at about 830 am, and locked up at about 4:30 pm.
The actual flight time was about 15 minutes.



[Jack Pittar]  -----Original Message-----
From: canberrauav-bounces at canberrauav.com
[mailto:canberrauav-bounces at canberrauav.com]On Behalf Of Stephen Dade
Sent: Sunday, 27 May 2012 11:11 PM
To: canberrauav at canberrauav.com
Subject: [Canberrauav] Sunday testing results

Hi everyone

Today Jack, Tridge, Matt, Chris and myself did some long-range testing of
the 5.8GHz and 900MHz radio links.

Our results were:

Mt Pleasant has significant interference at 900 MHz. So much so that we
couldn't get any 900 MHz link to the UAV from the site. Whether or not this
interference is from a legal/illegal emitter is debatable. I will check the
databases at work tomorrow to see if there's a licence for a 915-928 MHz
emitter in the area.

The ground station was moved to Red Hill. This proved to be a good site. In
addition to no radio interference there's tables, chairs and a cafe nearby
:)

The settings on the 900 MHz radio are unable to be remotely changed. This
led to Tridge/Matt doing laps between CMAC and Mt Pleasant.

We discovered that the CyberMugin is currently using the atmega1280 APM,
rather than (what we assumed to be) the atmega2560 APM. They require
different compilation options if you want the atmega to flash correctly.

In the end, we did get decent telemetry and photos through the radio links
to Red Hill. The software for the radio links is going to have to be altered
to cope with dropped packets more gracefully though.

The avionics battery (the lead acid battery) almost ran flat during the
flight, causing voltage dropouts. This resulted in the pandaboard rebooting
mid-flight. We are going to fit a voltage/current sensor to this battery for
future flights. It should be noted that the battery should have lasted
longer. We're not sure why the it was depleted so quickly.

Thanks

Stephen

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