Water Rocket Forum

I'm confused when people often talk about not being able to purchase things where they live. Forgive me for being naive but why is it impossible to get some things in some places? There are dozens of rocketry and r/c altimeters available for purchase on the internet and I see them for sale all over the world on various websites. Is there some restriction on purchasing things if you live in certain countries?

In reponse to your question, it sounds like the altimeter you mention would be ok to use because it is apparently a professionally developed design and has some level of widespread acceptance by various groups. My understanding of this altimeter rule is to prevent someone from taking a free schematic off the internet and building a homemade altimeter. Either it could be built improperly and give faulty readings, or it could have been intentionally built to read higher than actual height.

quique uy wrote:about the altimeters
I is almost impossible to buy a commercial altimeter. but here in the Rio de la Plata has been developed Alfa Altimeter between Rockety Societies of Uruguay and Argentina that are being used for solid fuel rockets.
This certified by both Societies

can I use???

It is necessary on-board video??

about los altímetros
me es casi imposible comprar un altimetro comercial. pero aca en el Rio de la Plata se ha desarrollado el Altímetro Alfa entre las Sociedades Cohetera del Uruguay y Argentina que están usando para sus cohetes de combustible sólido.
Esta certificado por ambas sociedades

podría usarlo???

Es necesario el video de a bordo????

Un Abrazo

Tim Chen wrote:I'm confused when people often talk about not being able to purchase things where they live. Forgive me for being naive but why is it impossible to get some things in some places? There are dozens of rocketry and r/c altimeters available for purchase on the internet and I see them for sale all over the world on various websites. Is there some restriction on purchasing things if you live in certain countries?

In response to your question, it sounds like the altimeter you mention would be ok to use because it is apparently a professionally developed design and has some level of widespread acceptance by various groups. My understanding of this altimeter rule is to prevent someone from taking a free schematic off the internet and building a homemade altimeter. Either it could be built improperly and give faulty readings, or it could have been intentionally built to read higher than actual height.

Tim is correct with the reason we do not allow home built altimeters. We do not want someone tampering with the reported data by altering the altimeter software either intentionally or by accident through poor assembly.

quique uy wrote:about the altimeters
I is almost impossible to buy a commercial altimeter. but here in the Rio de la Plata has been developed Alfa Altimeter between Rockety Societies of Uruguay and Argentina that are being used for solid fuel rockets.
This certified by both Societies can I use???

Yes you can use. since it is approved by solid fuel societies.

quique uy wrote:It is necessary on-board video??

The onboard camera is a requirement for the competitions. Cameras do not need to be high resolution and could be as simple as a wireless camera recording to a VCR. The reason we require the use of the onboard video is that the camera is the "witness" that the flight occurred. Due to the great distances involved with water rocket enthusiasts spread all over the world, scheduled "competition meets" or sending an association administrator to every record attempt are impractical. The videos also promote the sport around the world and encourage more members to participate. The cost of cameras has decreased rapidly over the last few years as they can be found in MP3 players, cell phones, etc.

I know what you mean Tim
The problem is that an altimeter on internet costs U$S 90 shipped to Uruguay
have a final cost of about U$S 230

quique uy wrote:I know what you mean Tim
The problem is that an altimeter on internet costs U$S 90 shipped to Uruguay
have a final cost of about U$S 230

Hey everyone, I've had my eye on this altimeter for quite some time and it looks applicable to this competition according to the specs.

http://www.graysonhobby.com/catalog/ele ... p-313.html

I don't think you could build one yourself for this price. Check it out!

Andromeda wrote:

quique uy wrote:I know what you mean Tim
The problem is that an altimeter on internet costs U$S 90 shipped to Uruguay
have a final cost of about U$S 230

Hey everyone, I've had my eye on this altimeter for quite some time and it looks applicable to this competition according to the specs.

http://www.graysonhobby.com/catalog/ele ... p-313.html

I don't think you could build one yourself for this price. Check it out!

Yes, the "How High" by WInged Shadow Sytems. I have one of these, and it works just fine. Very good prices available; I believe the main website is the best place to buy: they ship worldwide for a constant $2 no matter where you live (they can do this because it weighs almost nothing.) See http://www.wingedshadow.com/.

That's a neat little altimeter. You can't beat the price and the size! Thanks for pointing it out!!!

Yes, I have one and I'm quite happy with it. I'm seriously thinking about trying to break the B class record next summer, so I'll have to get a logging altimeter. But since the the How High was so cheap I still don't regret buying it. And it will always be good to have around. I'd feel comfortable putting it on rockets with new recovery systems that I wouldn't want to put a more expensive logging altimeter on. Unless you are positive you will be wanting a logging altimeter immediately, I can't see any reason not to start out with a "How High".

If you want to fly a camera and don't want to spend a ton of coin, there's a great deal on this camera that's super small and really cheap!

http://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.32022

This would work for the competition, right?

WTF wrote:If you want to fly a camera and don't want to spend a ton of coin, there's a great deal on this camera that's super small and really cheap!

http://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.32022

This would work for the competition, right?

Yes that camera would be legal for all competitions.

With cameras this inexpensive no one has an excuse not to fly one.

WTF wrote:If you want to fly a camera and don't want to spend a ton of coin, there's a great deal on this camera that's super small and really cheap!

http://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.32022

This would work for the competition, right?

Didn't I just see this somewhere? I smell a rat.

You're not the famous 8th grade rocket scientist, are you?

Spaceman Spiff wrote:

WTF wrote:If you want to fly a camera and don't want to spend a ton of coin, there's a great deal on this camera that's super small and really cheap!

http://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.32022

This would work for the competition, right?

Didn't I just see this somewhere? I smell a rat.

You're not the famous 8th grade rocket scientist, are you?

Is this an insider joke? I don't understand.

WTF wrote:

Spaceman Spiff wrote:

WTF wrote:If you want to fly a camera and don't want to spend a ton of coin, there's a great deal on this camera that's super small and really cheap!

http://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.32022

This would work for the competition, right?

Didn't I just see this somewhere? I smell a rat.

You're not the famous 8th grade rocket scientist, are you?

Is this an insider joke? I don't understand.

Maybe I was mistaken.

I just saw someone mention this same camera on a different message board and then you posted it here and I thought it was a little dishonest to take the discoveries of one person and post them as your own without a tip of the hat to the source.

The "inside joke" is that there's a guy out there claiming to be a kid who is constantly promoting his own website and when I looked at it I realized that he's loaded the site up with photos and diagrams that he's downloaded from the websites of other water rocket builders and doesn't give any credit for them. I can't tell you exactly where each picture was "borrowed" from, but I know for a fact that I've seen some of them years ago on other websites and some of them are definitely of Air Command's rockets.

If that's you, then knock it off. We respect the work of everyone else around here. Give credit where it is due and respect copyrighted images please. If it's not you, then I'm sorry for bringing it up and I apologize. I have a hard time thinking it's a coincidence the same item was mentioned in the same 24 hours.

Ah now, many of us read the same blogs and forums, that's what makes a community. There's a fair amount of cross-posting and that's fine (but it's a good idea to mention the source.)

In this case everyone is getting excited about the price for this camera. I'll repeat here what I warned elsewhere: they are delivered from mainland China, when the next boat is full; shipment can take months.

It must be a coincidence because I saw the camera mentioned a few weeks ago when I first signed up here and was reading the old messages.

http://www.wra2.org/forum/viewtopic.php ... 47&start=0

I ordered the camera and it took over 3 weeks to arrive. It came in the mail last Thursday.
My verdict is it's not too horrible when you consider the price. It's not great and not awful. They must have cut corners to get the cost out because mine is made of flimsy plastic and the video is not as good as some other samples I have seen from other people with the metal version. Mostly in low light everything is blurry. In good light the picture is better but has a lot of wavyness.

I also couldn't figure out how to turn off the date/time overlay and I just heard back from dealextreme and they said it can't be turned off. IMHO that's a big negative because it takes up the bottom 1/8 of the screen and it is annoying. You have to trim off the bottom of your videos to get rid of it. The still photo quality is just plain awful don't even try it.

Overall, it's good enough for flying on rockets and if you break it you're not going to break the bank but a cheap cellphone takes better video.

WTF wrote:It must be a coincidence because I saw the camera mentioned a few weeks ago when I first signed up here and was reading the old messages.

http://www.wra2.org/forum/viewtopic.php ... 47&start=0

I ordered the camera and it took over 3 weeks to arrive. It came in the mail last Thursday.

wtf.JPG

My verdict is it's not too horrible when you consider the price. It's not great and not awful. They must have cut corners to get the cost out because mine is made of flimsy plastic and the video is not as good as some other samples I have seen from other people with the metal version. Mostly in low light everything is blurry. In good light the picture is better but has a lot of wavyness.

I also couldn't figure out how to turn off the date/time overlay and I just heard back from dealextreme and they said it can't be turned off. IMHO that's a big negative because it takes up the bottom 1/8 of the screen and it is annoying. You have to trim off the bottom of your videos to get rid of it. The still photo quality is just plain awful don't even try it.

Overall, it's good enough for flying on rockets and if you break it you're not going to break the bank but a cheap cellphone takes better video.

So would you say this is a Chinese clone rather than the same as the original as described by Air Command?