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TriangleSky

Canopy Locator

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I've thought about this at length and the best solution I could come up with is Reeco Reflectors. They are small and require no batteries. One could be sewn on the DBag and another on the risers. The "reflectors" themselves are cheap ($25 per 2 pack) then you use "detectors" to triangulate the canopy. (I believe they are a couple hundred dollars each)


It beeps when you point it in the right direction.
From http://recco.com The maximum range of the system is 200 meters through air and 30 meters through snow.

It was designed for finding avalanche victims and is a popular attachment for ski gear (a lot of nicer jackets have them from the factory) . If your DZ decides to implement this, let me know because I'm very interested in if it would work as well as I believe it would. (and a kickback from any saved canopies would rock ;) )

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A company called Paratelemetry (George Galloway) was selling a system. The transmitter was attached to the risers and turned on when separated from it's pouch. A magnet kept the transmitter off until separated. A radio tracker was used. It was all based on falconry equipment.

See this thread and search for others.

http://www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?post=3230950;search_string=paratelemetry;#3230950

Looks like George may have closed it down. It's website is no longer active. Contact him at Precision to see if he still peddles it or can help you put it together on your own. Never caught on.
I'm old for my age.
Terry Urban
D-8631
FAA DPRE

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I've thought about this at length and the best solution I could come up with is Reeco Reflectors. They are small and require no batteries. One could be sewn on the DBag and another on the risers. The "reflectors" themselves are cheap ($25 per 2 pack) then you use "detectors" to triangulate the canopy. (I believe they are a couple hundred dollars each)


It beeps when you point it in the right direction.
From http://recco.com The maximum range of the system is 200 meters through air and 30 meters through snow.

It was designed for finding avalanche victims and is a popular attachment for ski gear (a lot of nicer jackets have them from the factory) . If your DZ decides to implement this, let me know because I'm very interested in if it would work as well as I believe it would. (and a kickback from any saved canopies would rock ;) )



Google search points to the "detector" being a couple thousand not hundred. I also couldn't find one source for new units, or any used units on ebay or CL.

Looks like a radio telemetry setup for falconry would be a cheaper approach. Those receivers are in the 500-2000 range, and the transmitters are a 100 and up.
"The restraining order says you're only allowed to touch me in freefall"
=P

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I just had an idea:
Smoke emitter that will go off for a couple hours when the risers separate from the harness. That should give you enough time to follow the smoke trail and get your canopy. But it would have to be small. And it wouldn't help if you chop on the sunset load. But maybe still better than nothing...

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yeah but smoke generator means generally heat. You don't want to recover a burnt canopy isn't it ?



good call. What it really comes down to is technology and market forces. My iPhone can find it's location to within about 10 feet pretty much anywhere. Now if someone could take that technology, put it in something about the size of a lighter and find a way to secure it to risers or a D bag and sell it together with the reciever for about 200 bucks, then I could see some big sales!

Problem is that skydiving is a pretty small market and R&D costs on such a device would be pretty high. Then you gotta bring it to market and convince people that it is worth the costs. Sounds like a pretty risky venture, so it will probably never happen.

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Well I've never contacted RECCO about it and since they don't publish prices, what source did you find an estimate? ( I was ball parking a few hundred since it is similar to a avalanche beacon and they are that price)

RECCO only markets towards Ski Resorts and provides the detectors for free to most of them. Even if they charged $2000 lets say. 10 tandem canopies equipped at $25 dollars each brings the total cost to $2250. Recover one canopy and you've recouped your cost. Not to mention that any fun jumper could have there their own reflectors added and it wouldn't cost the DZ anything to offer an "extra service".

The idea is that it is more expandable at less cost than any other option. The size and cost of the reflectors are negligible.

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You could look into those little thingies that people launching model rockets use to track their hardware. Or the stuff smart people use to track wildlife around.

AFAIK both options use simple FM signal generator and corresponding receiver. Apparently you can make one for yourself for... well.... not a lot of money :p

Here's more info: http://www.jbgizmo.com/
I understand the need for conformity. Without a concise set of rules to follow we would probably all have to resort to common sense. -David Thorne

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