Garmin Rinos

Have you actually tried tracking a downed rocket with this setup?

How close does the Rino get you to the rocket?

At what range have you tried?

I've long thought about getting a Rino, but with my budget, I'll have to wait until they include them in boxes of Froot Loops!

Gus

I've kicked around the same idea, I don't know if anyone has tried that yet.

I looked at the GPS flight units with interest, but they are darn expensive. Even after you've plunked down some heavy change to buy it, you still need a Laptop computer and a handheld GPS to go find your rocket with.

Couldn't a guy do this with a pair of Garmin 110's? Would you have to use a

-- Joe Michel NAR 82797 L1

Dave Zupan uses them

Dave uses them all the time. In addition, the 120 will set a line up to five miles to track your rocket. Once you watch it come down, you mark a spot, walk a hundred feet along the line, mark another spot, then tell it to draw a line.

At LDRS, Paul Yarnold deployed a main chute at apogee (projected like 20K) and using a 120 found his rocket five miles down range and was only a little over

I too hope to get one soon. Cheepest I've found them is Sports Authority which is owned my Sport Mart. I wonder if Walmart has them. MSRP is $250, I've seen them for $220.

No, not yet. I have been testing out the units. I am going to strip down the unit to make it lighter, then I will make it part of the payload of one of my up coming launches. I may use it in a rockoon launch planed in February. I know the units are very accurate, so I am not concerned about not being homed in to the rocket. Unfortunately, the weather where I am has turned to really, really, really cold and I have had to postpone several tests planned. This is not the weather to be outside playing with electronics for an hour. On the other hand, the weather is great for testing cold weather on batteries which I will do. Testing how long will a Garmin run in 0 degree weather would be a good project.

You don't need a laptop to find the unit. A second unit yes, but no laptop.

You could use two 110 units, but the 120 has more memory and has a few other goodies that make it worth the extra price. I would definitely use 110 in the payload.

I got a Christmas special when I bought two units online. They are up to $150 now! Wow!

Even if you don't build it, they will come - vaporware.

Paulie's rocket went to 25k, and the search was long, but the rocket was not found. The farmer found it afterwards and sent it back to him. The only trouble with this system is that you must see the rocket come down.

Why?

The Garmin gives you the coordinates, so why would you need to see the rocket come down. The point of having two Garmins is to be able to use the track function. I have used for fun tracking my children when we were up at the Mountains awhile back. I was able to locate them using the track function. I had no clue to where they were when I started.

Try Target, I believe they have them.

I would be very interested in finding out if these work well. I see that you can poll one radio from the other, so you don't need to have a little elf in your rocket pushing the transmit button. Although you can only poll once every 30 seconds, I suppose you could poll once at apogee for interest's sake, and poll again right before touchdown so you don't have reduced range on the ground.

If they work, I'd buy a pair.

Kevin

I think the Garmin polls automatically every 30 seconds. I will play with it later today, but I recall it updating on its own as the other unit was moving. Since the location would be only 30 seconds off, even if the unit died at that point, one should be able to extrapolate the rockets position form the data points and wind direction at the time the rocket location was last transmitted.

I found several places on the net under $200.

Bob Kaplow NAR # 18L TRA # "Impeach the TRA BoD" >>> To reply, remove the TRABoD!

If you are using one, and walking on the line like previously described, you must see it come down. Dave had 2, and put one in his rocket. Unfortunately that rocket lawndarted and the Rino was destroyed. I didn't think that they automatically sent their position, and the unit in the rocket had to push the send button. I know that Dave had a device set up to do this.

Also - The Rino's are heavy, and you have to have a place to put them (nosecone would probably be best). I still love the Rocket Hunter.

The early Rhino firmware didn't allow you to poll. You had to actively press the talk button to send your position. I see that a recent firmware update adds the remote polling feature.

I was going to try to set up an AYUCR pencam controller to periodically push the talk button, but never got around to it. Good to see that it is no longer neccessary. That makes it a lot easier. Maybe time to revisit the project.

-- Erik Ebert, L3 TRA #09105 NAR #79868