Flying Cell Phones
Hi,
Does anybody know if there are any legal (FAA or other) restrictions related to flying cell phones on weather balloons? One of the student teams in my course would like to do this as part of their research project.
Bernhard
Views: 20
Replies to This Discussion
-
Permalink Reply by Howard Brooks on -
Bernhard,
Cell phones are, to the best of my knowledge, legal. Some MIT students flew a balloon last fall with only a cell phone as their tracking system. Here's a link:
http://space.1337arts.com/
Howard
-
Permalink Reply by Bernhard Beck-Winchatz on -
Thanks, Howard!! What a cool tracking device! You would think that if there was a problem they would have heard about it after being on CNN, ABC, and Fox. I also emailed one of the students to ask him if he ever investigated if there were any restriction.
-
Permalink Reply by Howard Brooks on
-
Bernhard,
One drawback may be the GPS unit in the cell phone. I believe that the MIT students lost contact for quite awhile, especially above the 60 kft elevation. As is true with some independent GPS units, the software may be mis-written to block position information above that height regardless of speed.
It is a nice idea for a back-up system, but I'd still fly traditional 2 meter APRS and another radio beacon.
Howard
-
Permalink Reply by Bernhard Beck-Winchatz on
-
Yes, I think you are right. In the CNN video to said that they determined their maximum altitude by extrapolating the ascent rate at lower altitudes, so they must have either completely lost tracking, or at least didn't get the altitude information. I am not sure what exactly the students in my class want to do with the cell phone (we just got started with the student projects). Seeing how cheap and easy it is to transmit GPS coordinates I might encourage them to do this, but I think they were thinking more about simply trying to communicate with the cell phone from the chase vehicle.
Howard Brooks said:Bernhard,
One drawback may be the GPS unit in the cell phone. I believe that the MIT students lost contact for quite awhile, especially above the 60 kft elevation. As is true with some independent GPS units, the software may be mis-written to block position information above that height regardless of speed.
It is a nice idea for a back-up system, but I'd still fly traditional 2 meter APRS and another radio beacon.
Howard
-
Permalink Reply by Bernhard Beck-Winchatz on
-
I did a bit more research, and it seems that cell phone use is prohibited after all: The Code of Federal Regulations 22.925 says:
Cellular telephones installed in or carried aboard airplanes, balloons or any other type of aircraft must not be operated while such aircraft are airborne (not touching the ground). When any aircraft leaves the ground, all cellular telephones on board that aircraft must be turned off.
http://ecfr.gpoaccess.gov/cgi/t/text/text-idx?c=ecfr&rgn=div8&a...
This seems pretty clear, unless for some reason FAR 101-excempt weather balloons are not considered to be "balloons or any other type of aircraft."
Howard Brooks said:Bernhard,
Cell phones are, to the best of my knowledge, legal. Some MIT students flew a balloon last fall with only a cell phone as their tracking system. Here's a link:
http://space.1337arts.com/
Howard
© 2012 Created by Jason Krueger.
