I have started on the tracking transmitter that I will use to send dummy date to the HABAT via dl-fldigi. I have ordered a few GPS boards to use in the project and since I already have a Radiometrix NTX2, I have started work on the transmitter.
Its a simple circuit that is in use on many HAB projects that works by changing the voltage on the TX Data pin. More details can be found here.
This is what I ended up with:
The EN pin needs to be pulled high in order to turn the NTX2 on. I have taken it to pin 6 on the Arduino so that I can control the NTX2 from my code.
TXD is the data input (our 1’s and 0’s) so I split the input into two pins on the Arduino via two different value resisters. Pin 4 creates the 0’s and pin 5 creates the 1’s.
I assembled the circuit on a breadboard to test and hooked it up to the Arduino.
The last thing I need is some simple code to test the transmitter which was provided by NigeyS from UKHAS. I won’t post it without permission but it basically takes the GPS data from the Arduino serial port, formats it into RTTY and send it out via pins 4 and 5.
Once I was happy with the results, I built the final circuit on a piece of strip board ready to be mounted on the Arduino.
The finished result is good. Here is a short clip of the transmitter sending some dummy text to dl-fldigi. The signal is very stable and dl-fldigi has no problem decoding the RTTY data.
Just need to wait for the GPS to arrive then I can get it sending GPS data.
Hi, were you successful in passing GSP strings for conversion and transmission as RTTY so one could track please? I was hoping the code might already exist Thanks
Yes, I did get it working. There are lots of code examples around and you will probably find much more info that I can ever provide over on the UKHAS website. https://ukhas.org.uk/