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GPS Balloon Transmitter Project

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GPS_Eric

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Hello everyone. First, I'd like to out myself as an electronics novice, and I have no idea if what I'm about to ask is even feasible, so be gentle on me please :)

My son and I have been talking about how cool it would be to be able to launch a helium balloon with a GPS transmitter attached and be able to track its progress online. I'm a web developer so I can handle that side of things. The idea is simple, but I have no idea how difficult the execution might be. I've been reading about GPS chips and they seem to be quite small now, so in theory it sounds like it might be doable.

What do you think?
 
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Thank you very much; that's great info and I'll likely proceed with what I've learned.

My next questions is: how about doing something like this in bulk? The cost isn't bad for doing this once or twice, but what if I want to make 100 of these? Can I build any of this from scratch?
 
The GPS and PIC to implement the Radio Packets is straightforward. Building the transmitter is a bit harder. However, you cannot sell a Ham Radio based APRS solution to non-Hams. Duplicating the existing Ham packet radio infrastructure would be a huge task.

For a non-Ham solution, getting an FCC license to operate a several Watt VHF transmitter is difficult, expensive, and requires type-accepted equipment.
 
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