madhak Posted March 14, 2014 Share Posted March 14, 2014 I present my new masterpeice, its not a pineaple, not a wifi pineaple either but it does look like a pineaple! Why MK8? well read further… It has 8 radio! 4 SDR, 2 RF Transceiver/Modem and 2 WiFi BG and N… The connectors alone are more expensive than the SDR… Lots of connector and high quality coax. There also a HamItUp upverter hooked to one of the SDR so I can receive MF and HF band. At its core, a Mini ATX running a dual core atom N510 with 4GB of RAM. Behind the Mini-ATX lies 2x 16GB SSD in RAID 1 and its running KALI Linux, yeah man! The plan is to make 4 more of these and put them at the 4 corners of Montreal island (Canada) and one at my place in the center. This will allow triangulation of various signal… I fly Drones a lot and this tool will help me evaluate the RF condition and possible presence of other drone operator in the area as well as tracking real airplane and local authority to avoid potential issue while flying my multirotors. Eventually I want to add Video and Control relay capability to these to extend my range, but I have an other solution for that for now… Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TN.Frank Posted March 14, 2014 Share Posted March 14, 2014 Looks more like a porcupine to me, LOL Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mw3demo Posted March 14, 2014 Share Posted March 14, 2014 Very impressive, just checked out your site. Is this purely for a hobby? How do you plan on mounting them/powering them? That Antenna tracker base station reminds me of the movie "Congo (1995)". What are the legalities of flying drones in your area? What happens to the drone if you loose the connection? Nice work! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
madhak Posted March 14, 2014 Author Share Posted March 14, 2014 (edited) Yes its purely for hobby, I looked at the regulation and in Canada its a PITA to get a commercial licence, not worth the trouble IMO Those box are going at friends place in habitation tower on the rooftop, It has a 12v power in on the side and an internal batteries that last about 30min in case of power failiure. Legality well as a hobby its absolutely legal BUT if I put people at risk or spy on them than other laws apply, like public endangerment, privacy invasion to name just a few... But flying drone IS legal in north america! RF band is an issue too, the 2 legal ISM band (2.4 and 5.8GHz) provide max 1km of range, I use HAM band, these provide tens of KM (432 and 910MHz) but I make sure I don't interfere with anybody prior to my flight. If I lose connection well, on my most expensive rig I have an auto pilot with return to home, for the cheaper/smaller one well it crash or keep going... I have a set of tools to help me find it back, I lost a few of them, always got them back, not always in one piece tho. I also set the failsafe depending on my flight plan, if I plan to go very high, my failsafe should lower throttle when signal is lost, if flying very low it is set to increase throttle when signal is lost, so I have a better chance to catch it back, if I were to set throttle to increase uppon lost and going very high, this could happen heehehehe http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6c41LUKdIlI Thanks :) Edited March 14, 2014 by madhak Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mw3demo Posted March 15, 2014 Share Posted March 15, 2014 Interesting! Very cool hobby, and looks like you put a bunch of time into it! How did you get into this? How long did your tracker base station take to build? (From planning, to sourcing, to building, to testing, etc) What is the longest distance you have flown from base? Do you have some kind of feedback on fuel/power levels on the drone? Sorry about turning this in a Q&A but this is very cool! Interesting about the fail safe. LOL at the video. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Newbier Posted March 15, 2014 Share Posted March 15, 2014 neat little package you got there wouldnt mind seeing it in action, perfect for the drone use, but I don't own one so maybe I can watch free to air tv on the dvb-t standard with it Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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