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QCX+ Not Transmitting
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Shane Justice <justshane@...>
Hi Fred, Yes, indeed. Scary the lack of awareness that individual seemingly exhibits. BTW-, for those reading this thread, that business is named World View. Regards, Shane
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Shane Justice <justshane@...>
Hi Hans, My concern about safety is a leaking gas cylinder- leaking at home, in the trunk of your car, etc. While automobile gas is heavier than air, it's vapor pressure is low enough that it doesn't present a hazard when kept in a well-sealed container, and used as it is intended. While helium may be scarce, I'd still use it for the pico balloons, as all the enthusiasts in the world probably don't use as much helium as is in one research balloon. Also, saving people from being burned either by a hydrogen fire, or a secondary fire started by the hydrogen is worthwhile. No sense risking life-long disability and/or disfigurement if a fire were to occur. I have been around high-risk, high explosives, rocket propellant, high power lasers, high energy electrical systems, and the like for most of my 40 year career. Knock on wood, I've never been caught up in an accident (yet). Largely because I've been surrounded by a team of highly educated individuals with a safety first mindset. The risks must be quantified and understood, safe ways of handling the risks in all conditions codified, training initiated, testing of those trained to ascertain proper awareness has been inculcated, and safety monitored during use of the risky materials. Most casual hobby users don't have such systems in place to reduce the opportunities for accidents, hence why I recommend hydrogen use as a bouyant device be avoided. Also, I do have several years of volunteer service in a fire department, fighting fires of all manner. I've put out a lot of house fires, and several vehicle fires. Fires start quickly and can get away from one so quickly that the normal individual cannot extinguish it. I'm just trying to keep all our hobbiests safe, so they can live a long, relatively trouble-free life enjoying themselves as much as possible. Regards, Shane
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ohwenzelph
All ~ (grams per mole [6.02 x 10 to the 23rd] [22.4 liters per mole of gas at one atmosphere and 0 degrees centigrade])
H2 hydrogen 2 He helium 4 (air is 0.79 N2 and 0.21 O2)(plus tiny little bits of argon and other stuff) N2 nitrogen 28 O2 oxygen 32 CH4 methane 16 So, while not as good for lift as hydrogen or helium, Methane is lighter than air. If the natural gas you cook with is basically methane then you can use it as a lighter than air balloon filler. It is a green house gas; and it is clearly flammable like hydrogen. 73 |
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Shane, I was a mile away taking a phone call outside for privacy and actually saw the fireball from the wrong side of the building. It swung all of the doors open and knocked out suspended ceiling panels a mile away. I was glad or wasn't anything closer to me. The owner of that business now is our US senator.. Go figure. On Thu, Dec 17, 2020, 1:31 PM Arv Evans <arvid.evans@...> wrote:
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Arv Evans <arvid.evans@...>
Hans, & others Hydrogen is easy to access using electrolysis in a Y-tube with Hydrogen coming out one upward pointing outlet and oxygen coming out the other upward pointing leg. If done at mains water pressure it allows collection of the gases at that pressure. Since those pico balloons usually contain a radio transmitter and a GPS receiver, it theoretically could support jettisoning of the payload at a precise location for easy recovery. Since hydrogen burns upward instead of downward this might mean that the payload does not have to be protected from fire when you send the jettison command and introduce a spark into the gas or operate a knife to puncture the balloon. Arv _._ On Thu, Dec 17, 2020 at 12:58 PM Hans Summers <hans.summers@...> wrote:
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Hans Summers
Hi Shane
Lots of things are combustible and highly flammable including the gasoline in your car, and whatever gas you cook with. Often these are MORE dangerous since being heavier than air, they can pool somewhere waiting for the right conditions to explode. The problem with Helium is that it is a non-renewable natural resource and arguably should be conserved for more important purposes such as its medical uses. The big difference too in these floater picoballoons is that you are using only a tiny amount of hydrogen. 73 Hans G0UPL http://qrp-labs.com |
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Shane Justice <justshane@...>
All, I recommend against using hydrogen for the bouyant gas, as it is very combustible. Remember the Hindenburg disaster? If that isn't enough inducement, a company here in Tucson, that flies large balloons for high-altitude research, used hydrogen due to its lower cost, only to have the balloon detonate. Static electricity buildup and subsequent ignition of the hydrogen resulted in detonation of the balloon, resulting in broken windows at the plant where I work, over a mile and a half away. Hydrogen is an escape artist, so if you have the hydrogen tank in a confined area, such as a trunk of the car, that can build up from a leaky tank, and a little thing like sliding across the seat can generate enough static electric potential to ignite the gas and cause a flash fire or explosion. The risk is not worth the lower price of hydrogen. Helium is totally safe from the explosion hazard. Stay safe- we like having you around! Use Helium, instead. Regards, Shane
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As a perhaps final entry on this thread before it drifts too far away :) I have tried the RBN system today and been picked up by spotters in Finland and Iceland. So I can very pleased and this gives me the confidence to have a look at the Mini kit which arrived this week.
Many thanks again for everyone's input. I am learning exponentially! John M7WIV |
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Hans, Thank you, that is very reassuring! Using hydrogen is cheaper in the long run but the initial costs are high as I need to buy some regulators - which are about £150. Plus of course BOC charges a monthly rental for the cylinder, but at least by volume hydrogen is a tenth of the cost of helium. As an aside my QCX+ is transmitting well - just been picked up on the RBN network from Finland and Iceland. :) John On Thu, 17 Dec 2020 at 06:23, Hans Summers <hans.summers@...> wrote:
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Hans Summers
Hi John For a cheap 36" AliExpress balloon filled with party gas helium this was a quite reasonable altitude. I suspect your trial balloons are flying under the much more expensive SBS balloons filled with hydrogen. 13,000m is possible with these and this gets them above most of the bad weather. No we certainly are NOT using expensive SBS balloons! The test flights all use two AliExpress balloons that cost about $15 for a 10-pack, so $1.50 per balloon. They are hydrogen filled and the flights cruise at around 12,000m +/-. 73 Hans G0UPL |
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Roger Hill
AFAIK... As far as I know.
Roger
8P6RX
On 16 Dec 2020, at 19:57, "geoff M0ORE via groups.io" <tiscali.co.uk@groups.io target=_blank>m0ore=tiscali.co.uk@groups.io> wrote:
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geoff M0ORE
Which UK licence regulation is "cloudy" about using WSPR? Is it just 20m or all bands? What does AFAIK stand for? Have you contacted the RSGB about your interpretation of the licence? How is the use of WSPR in the UK related to the topic "QCX+ Not Transmitting"?
On 16/12/2020 21:39, Ted 2E0THH wrote:
On Wed, Dec 16, 2020 at 06:37 PM, John Laidler wrote: |
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On Wed, Dec 16, 2020 at 06:37 PM, John Laidler wrote:
I'm also familiar with WSPR but it can't be used in the UK AFAIK.Hi John Very pleased you discovered that you were transmitting after all. Re WSPR in the UK, I think you need to do a little more research. Whilst I agree the documentation relating to operating WSPR in the UK is cloudy, my understanding is if you stick to the rules, it is perfectly legal to operate WSPR in the UK. 73 Ted |
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Hans, this was my last balloon's flight. It was updating location every thirty seconds using the TTN nodes - except at night of course - you can see these periods by the straight lines in the flight path. WSPR updates much less often but on a global flight just knowing what country is above is enough. :) it's last transmissions were picked up at about 350 Km from mainland Spain. Not bad for 868MHz at around 20mW but it was at about 9,000m altitude and we all know elevating the antenna increases range. For a cheap 36" AliExpress balloon filled with party gas helium this was a quite reasonable altitude. I suspect your trial balloons are flying under the much more expensive SBS balloons filled with hydrogen. 13,000m is possible with these and this gets them above most of the bad weather.
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Hans Summers
Hi John I'm eagerly waiting for the QRP Labs WSPR tracker to be available for pico-balloons - they are beyond my skills to make. My TTN tracker I made using an Arduino Mini Pro and came in at 10g but a WSPR tracker can be half that. The U4B tracker is hopefully the next product to emerge from the pipeline after almost 6 years in development and testing! The board is 33.0 x 12.7mm and weighs 1.5 grams. Of course you have to add to that solar panels, antenna and what have you. I had the great pleasure of copying two of the U4B test flight series today, #12 and #13. U4B-12 was in Germany on its 7th lap around the world, coming up to 3 months in the air. U4B-13 in Pakistan some 3,500km East of me on its first lap. They operate low power (9mW) and when the sunlight is enough, "high" power (27mW). In addition to WSPR telemetry both balloons also transmit a balloon glyph - yesterday is an example I copied of U4B-12's balloon glyph and "U4B12" text, it was crossing Northern Iraq at that point. U4B-13 is the final PCB layout that will be used in the production batch. 73 Hans G0UPL |
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Al Holt
John,
If power levels are a problem, the QCX will output a little over 1W if the supply voltage is 8V. Just a thought, --Al |
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Al Holt
John,
WSPR on 20m not allowed in UK? Gosh, that seems odd.... IMO, you don't need GPS with QCX. But, that implies you are pretty sure your frequency is accurate. If you are using the TCXO add-on module that's icing on the cake, so to speak. A crystal controlled QCX can be very stable and accurate after 15-30 warm up time. Setting the clock accurately is not that hard and it seems you can be within 1-1.5 seconds and still get reported. I've been setting the clock manually on mine by exiting (and setting) the menu item about 1/2 second early. So use Internet time or over the air time standard it seems to work. Also, in firmware 1.07 FSKCW is supported; you can do some QRSS! There are some 'grabbers' in the UK for sure! Cheers! --Al WD4AH |
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Al, I've just heard of RBN and will give it a go tomorrow. I'm also familiar with WSPR but it can't be used in the UK AFAIK. I also haven't fitted a GPS yet and might not having heard of the problems which can occur. A QRP WSPR Beacon would be the answer.
Curiously WSPR was one of the things which got me into all this as I've launched a couple of high altitude balloons. One made it almost to Africa using the The Things Network for tracking. But the TTN network is very patchy outside Europe and for real global tracking WSPR is the answer. I'm eagerly waiting for the QRP Labs WSPR tracker to be available for pico-balloons - they are beyond my skills to make. My TTN tracker I made using an Arduino Mini Pro and came in at 10g but a WSPR tracker can be half that. John M7WIV |
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Al Holt
John,
WSPR and RBN are your friend :-) WSPR is easy to set up on the QCX and there are so many monitors listening you should have no trouble getting some idea of how you are getting out. I haven't read the whole thread so you may already know about WSPR. https://wsprnet.org/drupal/ is a good place to start to see the monitoring capabilities. RBN is a bit different. --Al WD4AH |
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This is deeply embarrassing! After yesterday's efforts I realised if 13.8V was reaching the antenna it must be transmitting something unless it was just plain DC I was measuring. So today I added an upconverter to the SDR. I know the cheap NooElec SDR I have doesn't work well at HF frequencies but I assumed it would pick something up as it was so close to the QCX+. The upconverter adds 125MHz to the signal to bring it into the range the SDR works best at.
How wrong I was as the screenshot below shows. The signals are not very strong because the QCX was feeding into the dummy load, but it was showing a signal which it hadn't before. Coupling the QCX to a wire suspended across my garden produced a much stronger trace. So I am really sorry for bothering everyone with a non-problem. All my own fault started by me trying to measure the power output at the dummy load and using the upper board which carries no signal. This started me off in the direction of thinking it wasn't transmitting and digging an ever deeper hole for myself. What I need to try now is perhaps a range test with a friendly operator living nearby. My CW skills are poor but I can just about manage a CQ and my own callsign. Just don't try to hold a conversation. :) |
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