The radio transmitter that will launch together with the high altitude balloon
On friday the 29th of March 2019 we conducted the first test of our LoRa radio communication system. We tried transmitting data over a distance of1 km with a 4-λ wire antenna in the frequency range around 868 MHz. The experiment was a complete success, as we were able to reliably receive data even though we only used a transmission power of 5 mW, which is way less than the maximum power of 200 mW available to us. On top of that, we also tested different combinations of antenna orientations relative to each other. With this system, it is even possible to send grayscale images over long distances, which we will test in an upcoming experiment when we start a high-altitude balloon with a camera inside.
The radio reciever of our ground station
We successfully transmitted packages from the top of the hill in the background