I would like to take part in this and people at my club(TCARS Thornton Clevelys) can help me get beyond the huge mountain which is this ‘digi stuff’. I’ve read all the notes and followed the links and I am still quite unsure which specific board to buy. Could someone send me a link to one board to get as the links seem to give a panoply of bewildering choices. The whole aprs tracking looks awesome and loads of summity fun.
Many thanks.
Dave M
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@G8SNR
There are many places you can buy the Heltec board from, but here is one of them, website link below:
This is an image of the Heltec tracker, to make sure you have the correct item:
Scroll down the page, to where you get to choose what you want to purchase, and fill in both boxes as below:
LoRa Band needs to be set to ‘470~510MHz’, and the screen set to ‘Yes’.
Click ‘add to cart’.
Your cart should look like the below:
Now checkout, and add your delivery details.
Maybe order a few boards, so you have enough for your club.
Good luck!
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Hi Dave,
The PDF has a direct link to the Heltec store:
But it appears that the 433MHZ board is not available currently (sold out):
There are other sellers, e.g.:
It’s also available on Amazon (not used them):
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Jrifedptry-Wireless-Meshtastic-Bluetooth-433-510MHZ-Black/dp/B0DSFXVJ32
The one thing to watch out is that you choose the correct frequency - you need the “433MHz” variety. AliExpress can be sneaky on this - you need to select the correct “color” option:
EDIT: or see Ben’s post above! 
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I was wondering about the legality of the balloon bit and was it being done on the ISM 70cm allocation? I following HAB and have yet to see a ham one launched in the UK
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Please RTM.
Read the whole thread!
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It’s all covered in the manual…
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Indeed it is. I’ve seen many an install guide/manual/setup guide over the years. I’ve seen the stuff that comes with software that will cost you $50000/seat which is nowhere near as comprehensive as Dave’s guide. There’s a thing in journalism, the 5Ws, who, what, where, when and why. Dave’s guide hits all the points, background to APRS, background to LoRa, UK licencing (because there are many hams in the UK who don’t understand their licence requirements) and then detailed instructions on downloading and installing the software tools and source followed by how to build the code and program the board. It is quite wonderful.
I’ve had to write such guides in the past and I know just how many hours work will have gone into this. Never mind the words, just snipping all the pictures to include is plenty of work, never mind ensuring you have them nicely aligned and presented. It is exceptionally good considering you get all the tools and source for FREE. And has links on where to buy now the SOTA shop is out of stock.
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Hopefully sorted soon, the case is available if you purchase the board elsewhere
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Good to hear Barry. I specifically did not buy from the SOTA store when I saw there were only a couple available for a simple reason. There will be many people who have never bought from Chinese vendors like Heltec or AliExpress before and may be wary. In general, I have had positive experiences (5.4m telescopic antennas excepted) dealing with Chinese companies so I’d be happy to buy direct and leave the reputable SOTA store stock for those less confident in sending payment to China.
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I will give you that it is there, but you have to go through a lot of stuff to find it buried in the middle.
^F
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chrome-extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/https://rsgb.services//public/events/RSGB_LoRA_ARPS_Balloon_Tracker_1.6.pdf
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Interesting point. I’ve written a few ARs over the years which I hoped were quite interesting for others to read, but especially after reading ripping yarns from Matthew M0MZB and a few others I fear most of my week-in, week-out activations though I enjoyed them at the time would seem routine and dull if written up.
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I enjoy reading normal SOTA write-ups so please keep writing them!
( I also enjoy reading the much more adventurous ones although I have stopped thinking I could do that if I got a bit / a lot fitter)
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Needs GPS on the board.
Needs to tx on 433 MHz.
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Thanks all I’ve ordered the amazon board.
Cheers Dave
G8SNR
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great project!!
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Dumb question but I’ll ask it anyway. 
I already have a working LoRa tracker on 439.912500, do I just change the frequency to the one needed for this event?
I’ll be in northern France at the time and intend to take a 70cm Yagi with me - although I’ll probably be disqualified for not putting F/ before my callsign, which I can’t do as the aprs system doesn’t recognize this format.
On a technical note, having flown a balloon to just over 100,000 feet using a LoRa tracker many years ago the GPS software needed to be modified as it wasn’t designed for high altitude. In brief it stored the altitude as a short integer and this needed to be modified to a long integer, which it already used for lat and long. I’m assuming this has been checked for this flight? It doesn’t matter if it does report altitude incorrectly but an error, if there is one, needs to be caught so it doesn’t cause a fatal error.