QSO Today Presentation Companion
In a relatively short time from writing this post, I’ll be doing a presentation about this rocket project at the QSO Today Virtual Expo. My specific presentation, How to Build the Radio Rocket will be Sunday March 26th, at 6pm UTC (2pm EDT, 11am EDT), in the event you’d like to mark your calendar.
The real reason for this post however, is for folx who end up stumbling here as a result of the presentation, after it happens:-) During the presentation I threw out a lot of stuff very fast, so I wanted to put some summary information here, with links to the things that I referred to during that presentation, for easy reference.
General Rocketry Info
National Association of Rocketry (NAR)
Tripoli Rocketry Association
These are the 2 big organization in Model/Mid-Power/High-Power Rocketry. If you’re interested in rocketry info in general, these organization are a great place to start. The biggest difference between the two associations is that the NAR is primarily a United States based organization, and tends to be more active in the model and mid-power areas of the hobby. Tripoli is a global organization with clubs around the world, and tends to be high-power centric. Both organizations however do cover the full range of the hobby, and they recognize each other’s certifications if you get involved in high power.
My Radio-Rocketry Project
The quickest way to read up on my specific project is to check out the dedicated summary page for the rocket project, and to check out my blog posts that are tagged Radio-Rocket.
Resources
For the code bits of this project, I’m doing my best to keep the most current copies of the code updated on github. The code for the current in-progress version is in my RadioRocketV2 Repository. I also have the code from the original version in my RadioRocket Repository, however I’m no longer updating the original repository since I’ve started working on V2 of the rocket.
Quite a bit of the electronic bits, including the 70cm LoRa modules, come from Adafruit.
The single board computer in the ground station is a Libre Computer which in my opinion is just as easy to work with as the Raspberry PI, but is actually obtainable, and doesn’t come from a company who’s social media account behaves like an entitled ass-hat.
The Project box for the ground station is one of these. They’re actually pretty slick little enclosures.
I get a lot of my rocketry supplies from Apogee Components. I like them for the same reason I like Adafruit - they don’t just sell stuff - they have a pretty extensive library of how-to information, videos, etc.
Follow
The best place to follow along for the most up-to-date doings is on social media - the rocket has it’s own account on the fediverse, at mastodon.hams.social.