I want to make a contained unit that will transmit the location of my aircraft over rf, so after a crash I can recover it. I have never used a GPS module or rf. How hard would this be to make? Did what I buy work? I think about a 10 yard range would be fine. Or even something simpler as the rf gets stronger the receiver unit makes something beep at a faster rate?
A GPS module like this one would be much more convenient, as it has built in antenna.
You will need two arduinos, like the Pro Mini, for the transmitter and receiver.
There are lots of tutorials on the web for both the GPS and the radio communications, but avoid Instructables, as most of them are written by people who have no idea what they are doing.
Learn to read the GPS, and to use the radios, separately.
I think you'll want a microcontroller as well to limit the amount of data sent out. On many GPSs, you can send a position request and get a response back like this:
You'd want to 'parse' that and just send the position part of it back, and maybe then not even all of it.
I don't know about this:
"Or even something simpler as the rf gets stronger make something keep r faster maybe? "
That'd be on the receiver side, not the aircraft/transmitter side. Determining the signal strength would be needed. If you have the transmitter's location tho, you can equip your receiver with GPS as well, and then having the two locations you can determine a direction to head in to go to the aircraft.
Non-WAAS GPS receivers can send out a position that can be up to 2-3 meters off, that's just the limits of GPS and triangulating from signals high above the Earth:
GPS satellites fly in medium Earth orbit (MEO) at an altitude of approximately 20,200 km (12,550 miles).
I did plan to use an arduino, or micro controller maybe ATtiny85 or 84 to interoperate from the gps and send to the rf hardware. I would like to use an ATtiny if I can because they are cheaper, in case something happens and something gets crushed.
lineman2208:
I was very close to the last one and didn't find it. Environments are 3d. Corn stalks. Trees. Hedge rows.
In that environment the TX and RX pair you are using are unlikely to have enough range to be of much use, 50m or less maybe, so your going to have the be very close in the first place. Although they do have the advantage of being cheap.