Pre-Flight Testing

            Before sending our payload out into the atmosphere to receive measurements, we had to make sure our data was going to be able to be sent to us via the Laird Aerocomm Radios, and our position was going to be displayed online via the Micro-Trak GPS System. As you have seen in our earlier posts, we have been successful in having our payload communicate with the computer via Aerocomm while in the lab, but we had yet to ensure all of our data would be sent over a long distance. So we set up our ground station in the yard in front of the Mark Jefferson Science Building, and had one of us walk around with the payload and Micro-Trak, while maintaining line of sight with the ground station. We found to our disappointment that the radios would only communicate within a distance of about thirty feet. The other group was having similar issues with their system, but after consulting with Dr. Pawlowski, we decided the loss in communication was most likely due to interference from all the nearby trees and buildings. We were able to get a satellite lock on the Micro-Trak, but the data wasn't being loaded onto the website. We figured this to be a momentary issue with the website and not with our device. We were also able to use this time to check over and finalize testing for all of our other devices on the payload. While the payload was within thirty feet, we were able to see all our data presented completely and organized, which let us know the data logger was working fine. Also, we saw we had an adequate number of satellites lock onto our GPS sensor in the payload, and all of our sensors were giving accurate measurements for our conditions. After checking all of these devices and concluding what we believed to be the causes of our Aerocomm and Micro-Trak issues, we decided that our payload was ready to be combined with the other balloon components and go for launch.