?

I would like to share ideas on packaging.

I am in the process of building a qrss transmitter which I will put into a square glass bottle I obtained from Lobby Hobby. The bottle mouth is 2 inches and the holding area is 3 inches high. It has a combination aluminum and plastic lid.

I plan to use an F fitting for the antenna connection. Much cheaper than BNC or UHF and they work very well it crimped correctly.

I have mixed feeling about if I will use a heater on the xtal or not. Since the entire board would not be in any draft condition.

I am also thinking about filling the bottle with glass beads after I install the transmitter. Makes a good heat sink I think.
Can not decide if I will paint the inside of the bottle black or not. I am considering the inside black with the outside silver.

All power supply components will be outside the bottle and may or may not be on the top of the lid. Initially will not be on the lid.

I will add a wood box with the pink foam installation between the bottle and the wood.

I long term goal is to build something super stable and to bury it in the yard.

Interested in your thoughts and suggestions,

Thanks, Stan AK0B

Stan AK0B

Some time ago a couple of us were discussing something similar, but
using QRSS beacons with GPS
for launching in ocean currents to see where they go. Our approach was
to use 3 inch diameter
PVC drain pipe as the chassis with 3 inch pipe caps glued onto each
end. Adding a battery pack
at one end would keep them floating upright so an antenna on the
opposite end would be above
water most of the time. With a reducer fitting the antenna could be
installed inside a length of
smaller PVC pipe for a fully water-tight system. This discussion
progressed to talking about wave-
action charging and possibility of sending commands to an accompanying
receiver for remote
control, including wave-action propulsion and associated navigation.
This then led to the absurd, like making a geo-cache that floated around
in the ocean.

Your glass bottle might lend itself well to battery charging via an
internal solar cell if you leave
one side exposed to the sun. With microprocessor control you could make
it sense battery
charge and turn on only when there is adequate power for at least one ID
sequence. ID could
also include telemetry information like temperature, battery state,
solar intensity, wind speed,
and so on.

Arv K7HKL
_._


On 07/31/2011 01:47 PM, w9ifz wrote:

I would like to share ideas on packaging.

I am in the process of building a qrss transmitter which I will put
into a square glass bottle I obtained from Lobby Hobby. The bottle
mouth is 2 inches and the holding area is 3 inches high. It has a
combination aluminum and plastic lid.

I plan to use an F fitting for the antenna connection. Much cheaper
than BNC or UHF and they work very well it crimped correctly.

I have mixed feeling about if I will use a heater on the xtal or not.
Since the entire board would not be in any draft condition.

I am also thinking about filling the bottle with glass beads after I
install the transmitter. Makes a good heat sink I think.
Can not decide if I will paint the inside of the bottle black or not.
I am considering the inside black with the outside silver.

All power supply components will be outside the bottle and may or may
not be on the top of the lid. Initially will not be on the lid.

I will add a wood box with the pink foam installation between the
bottle and the wood.

I long term goal is to build something super stable and to bury it in
the yard.

Interested in your thoughts and suggestions,

Thanks, Stan AK0B

?

Hi Stan,

That is a very interesting proposition you have there.?

On our kits we get great stability without using any ovening of the crystals. If you are burying the whole plot in the back yard I suspect you are going to subject it to more temperature variation than the average shack. So some sort of ovenisation might be required. The only other problem i can think of is with all that packaging and paint how will you get the thing on frequency? I suspect the packaging will affect the output frequency so you need some way to tune it without removing it from the package.?

It sure will puzzle any?archaeologists who dig up your garden in a few hundred years time if it is still there.?

Arv is not the only one who was thinking about a QRSS marine beacon. A friend and I were thinking of one. The case was going to be a 2 liter (not sure what that is in American) transparent coke bottle. Power as many C Cells as we could get into the bottom to act as power/ballast. Possibly solar panel top up, GPS linked to microcontroller to TX location using QRSS.Antenna some sort of loaded vertical. I did ask our equivalent of the FCC if we could do this but they said no as unatteneded beacons are not allowed. May be?be you guys have different rules...?

73s Steve G0XAR

--
It is vain to do with more that which can be done with less.