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The Big Red Bee 70cm CW Transmitter - Proximity Recovery Beacon cold weather (-18F) testing on November 18, 2009 in preparation for near-space environment. At approximately minus 18 F and at 16mW, it lasted 7 hours. (click on the graph for a larger version).

 

The Big Red Bee 70cm CW Transmitter - Proximity Recovery Beacon cold weather (-22F) testing on November 20, 2009 in preparation for near-space environment. At approximately minus 22 F and at 8mW, it lasted 9+ hours. I was able to receive the CW signal about 4.5 miles away. (click on the graph for a larger version).

 

With help from Steve (VK6HV), creation of a standard HF 28.322 MHz (10m) Beacon for BEAR4 and future flights. This beta version is a hand drawn pcb board prior to etching. Once the beta works properly, we'll create a more professional board.

 

Picaxe 8M chip flight controller with piezo beeper attached (for testing). I'm using the olimex 8pin development board which features a full RS232 interface and a 5V power regulator. (http://www.olimex.com/dev/)

 

Picaxe 8M code snippet which implements timing and control of both the byonics microtrak 300 and the piezo beeper.

 

Picaxe 8M chip and reed relay controlling a byonics microtrak 300 transmitter via pic-basic.