New Product Announcement: GPS

[dliepe]

Well, fortunately, there are already a lot of other inexpensive options out there to choose from, and you can continue as you are.

I guess nearly every product needs to be priced according to is value to the user, and when that's exceeded, or an even better option comes along, products cease to sell.

Yes, this may not be for everybody.

And yet somehow, I think most everybody (at least longwingers) will eventually have it. Otherwise, we would not have spent the large amount of capital and effort to produce it.

RB

To those of us who flys big longwings and push the envelope for huge pitches
and dramatic stoops the benefits are crystal clear. The investment is trivial when you take into account the effort and years involved in shaping flight style to what you want to see.. So much hit or miss guesswork involved when a bird is off or too high to see or both. This eliminates that guesswork. Now you know for certain which situations you shouldn't reward. To be able to map real time your birds performance in so many ways is truly amazing.
The tracking aspect seems secondary but I can already see how it will make it so much easier to find your birds.. Just get in the ballpark with the beeper and then turn on GPS. Wicked!
The greatest benefit to me is the fact that now the reigns can be loosened even further. You know now how much quicker you can get to your bird.
With the GPS the ground recoverys in deep cover and hilly terrain, like the Sandhills and much of the west, become a breeze. Anyone who has hawked out there has lost signal when the falcon is in a deep depression. With GPS shooting vertically won't this eliminate this type of problem? Am I misunderstanding?
I am a simpleton after all.

[rkumetz]

One thing that the direct link preserves is your ability to move around with the receiver (including using an aircraft) to get a signal. As an improvement if you bird sits down somewhere you just need to get one complete data packet to figure outwhere it is. With a cellular based system that is not an option because you can't move cell sites. New options are opened such as putting a receiver on a UAV to gain height or even remotely search for a bird in inaccessible areas. Sure, a drone is not cheap but renting a plane and pilot can't be done with your spare change either.

[rkumetz]

To those of us who flys big longwings and push the envelope for huge pitches
and dramatic stoops the benefits are crystal clear. The investment is trivial when you take into account the effort and years involved in shaping flight style to what you want to see.. So much hit or miss guesswork involved when a bird is off or too high to see or both. This eliminates that guesswork. Now you know for certain which situations you shouldn't reward. To be able to map real time your birds performance in so many ways is truly amazing.
The tracking aspect seems secondary but I can already see how it will make it so much easier to find your birds.. Just get in the ballpark with the beeper and then turn on GPS. Wicked!
The greatest benefit to me is the fact that now the reigns can be loosened even further. You know now how much quicker you can get to your bird.
With the GPS the ground recoverys in deep cover and hilly terrain, like the Sandhills and much of the west, become a breeze. Anyone who has hawked out there has lost signal when the falcon is in a deep depression. With GPS shooting vertically won't this eliminate this type of problem? Am I misunderstanding?
I am a simpleton after all.

See my reply (#9) to Ron's post below.

[Captain Gizmo]

With a direct radio link on a GPS tag you are in the same situation as with a simple beeper, except that the same power at the transmitter gets 1/2 to 1/3 the range. All the same tactics to receive a weak signal still apply.

1. Get the receive antenna up.
A. Stand on the top of your truck and hold the receiver up.
B. Better yet add a broom pole or a couple 5 foot sections of PVC pipe.
C. Since the Marshal link receiver is a stand alone device you can put it on a pole or even hang it from your balloon or kite or haul it aloft with your quadcopter (within the limits of of the range of the Bluetooth to download to your iOS device).
D. Take the high ground. Head for the nearest or highest hill. Climb a stack of hay bales if that is the best available.
E. Rent an airplane.
2. Use a stronger receive antenna. there is no reason you can not feed your link receiver from your Yagi antenna, with resulting improved range.
3. You will get the beeper after you have lost the data link. As suggested below follow the beeper until your data link picks up another fix. A spare Yagi or Quad directional antenna would allow maximum range on both at once. Means to get your receive antennas as high above ground as practical still apply.