Track High Altitude Balloon: Arduino UNO + gps shield + NTX2

Hi all, I'm new and a beginner. I'm planning a High Altitude Balloon flight and I was thinking on put together an arduino UNO, the Adafruit GPS Ultimate shield and the radio transmitter Radiometrix NTX2. I searched a lot but I only found how to connect the gps shield to arduino or the ntx2 to arduino, but I haven't found how to put these three parts together. Should I connect the NTX2 to arduino or to the gps shield?
Can anyone help me?
Thank you very much

You can hook both to the Arduino. Just pick pins that don't conflict. For example you could use pins 2 and 3 to talk to the GPS and pin 6 to talk to the radio.

You are probably looking for plug-together package that is simpler than is actually possible, and may not be the best way go if it was.

The GPS can simply plug into the Uno but I haven't seen any version of the radio that will. If there was, it would need to be able to accept the GPS because the GPS would not be able to the Radio, i.e. the GPS is not stackable.

You would be better off looking at alternatives ways of using the products, such as a GPS shield with space for other components. Not the least would be making your own boards, either

  1. one which has just the radio, which plugs into the Uno and accepts the GPS board.

  2. one which carries both the radio and a GPS module.

  3. One which has both and also includes the MCU chip, thereby saving the maximum amount of weight, and keeping the Uno at home just for prototyping purposes.

johnwasser:
You can hook both to the Arduino. Just pick pins that don't conflict. For example you could use pins 2 and 3 to talk to the GPS and pin 6 to talk to the radio.

Thank you so much for your answer! So is it possible to program the UNO in order to pick data from the GPS shield and transfer them using the ntx2? Sorry if it could be a simple thing, but I'm a rookie... :blush:

The example I saw of connecting the radio showed how to send text at 50 baud. The GPS provides text. It could be as easy as getting text from the GPS and forwarding that text to the radio. If you want to get fancy you can add other sensors such as temperature, pressure, humidity, etc.

Here is a good start for you..lots of searching ,but gets you going.
Now to find out how to program all of it to act like a tracker.
That is the hard part.
http://ukhas.org.uk/guides:linkingarduinotontx2
or
http://ava.upuaut.net/store/wiki/doku.php?id=frontpage:levelconvertor

Website error,using the GPS connections one is missing in the instructions.The EN from GPS is also to 5v.
Do not use this method unless you have the same GPS as far as voltages.

I was thinking of something like this but with a nano and button battery. Idea would be to make it as small as possible, have some "alien looking LED's" that activate once above a certain altitude and stay on. Maybe even have a detach function that releases an escape pod with a small chute. This would be cool to launch at night when the town is having some major outdoor event. :astonished:

Sounds like a good plan.
Just learning about this Arduino and such,but find it very difficult so far.Lots of code to look at and learn how it all works.
But happy to say,finally finished one so far and would like to add another radio module to it.That will be the hard part.
Check into the AD9850 DDS modules,they are very inexpensive and fun to play around with.