Radio Rocket

N3VEM Radio Rocket

Wow - you found this. Pat yourself on the back:-)

I’m currently dabbling with some rocketry stuff with the kiddos, so of course I had to start playing around with ways to stick some radio stuff in the rockets. There’s not much to show for it yet, but here’s the current state:

The Rocket

The rocket itself is ‘under construction’ but basically, it is a modified mid-power Aerotech Initiator Kit. The rocket is made longer to accomdate the electronics and antenna’s, and is equipped with a larger than stock parachute because of the extra weight associated with the extra components.

The Electronics Sled

The lead picture is of the electronics sled that slides in the extended section of the rocket. This carries all the Ham Radio and electronics goodies.

APRS

The rocket has a lightAPRS for APRS packets. I detailed in the lightAPRS groups.io group the modifications that I did so that I could get more packets through faster, since at the relativly low altituides this rocket will reach, the flights will be short.

LoRa

The rocket is also carrying an Adafruit feather, with 70cm LoRa and some other sensors, for other telemetry data. More info on this to come.