Hi Steve,

Looks like you are doing a great job with assuming the Webmaster tasks that Warren had done so admirably for so long.
I've been in the club just a few years and am quite happy with the variety of members we have; their beliefs, and opinions about all kinds of things. As much as I have lived and traveled overseas, fluently speak several languages, I have never experienced "unfriendly" nations. Sure, there are "unfriendly" people, but overall, the vast majority of humanity just wants to be able to love and raise their children in a safe and joyful environment.
It is a policy that our club is focused on supporting the advancement of rocketry for all who show interest, safety, and common sense. We don't really care where an individual is from, what they do in their personal lives, etc.
Through our love of rockets, members from different backgrounds and beliefs find a common interest that often bridges the gap between our so-called "differences". In this way of finding things more in common rather than things that are different between people, eventually our descendants may find our world to be a little safer than it is today.

The idea that "unfriendly" nations are not invited to share in our rocketry passion strikes me as being politically motivated and prejudicial. Did you deny membership to an individual simply because he/she was from Spain? If not, than why bother mentioning what country was involved? It can't possibly be for "national security issues" as BATF has made sure that we all behave ourselves. Last time I checked, all Spanish citizens and their government was a member in good standing with NATO.
Russia? Like a multitude of other nations, I read recently in the NAR magazine about their participation in the Rocketry World Championships that were held in Serbia this past year.

It is a club rule that we stay away from "political" discussions on the forum, yet if willing, many a beer has been consumed over the years while discussing personal opinions. I can't imagine that stereotyping of governments has a place in our club.

I have learned over the past years in this club that we tend to focus mostly on the safe implementation of Newton's Three Laws of Motion. Perhaps if necessary, club members and officers can chime in, vote, change policy regarding membership. But until that time, I cannot find any reason to deny access to our rocket ramblings unless they are just plain rude and mean spirited.

Just a quick, off the cuff response and please note - I'm not a computer tech geek savey individual. I have to believe that the reasons a few specific ISP's have been denied access, stems not from whether they are actually from an "unfriendly" country but because the number of "spammers" and Phishers" and smut pushers out there are in-tolerable to allow bandwidth space on any server, especially ours. I

I have basically quit monitering the President@NCRocketry email because I don't need fiftyseven thousand different knock off watches, health and life insurance from unknown companies, medicine chestfuls of pills and rememdies and I certainly don't need a mail order bride or facsimile thereof. This website has been attacked in the past by nasties and it is impossible to prevent the cyber robots without some form of verification and as I understood, ISP verification (at least the origin of such) is a fundamental first step. Web Security should not be taken lightly. It's got nothing to do with political, religious, sexual, socio-economic basis.

Thank you Steve for stepping up and protecting the behind the scenes weirdness that make this web site work.

There are, believe it or not, a number of issues in our hobby that skirt the edges of ITAR restrictions that the US government has in place. These are very serious laws and not subject to court oversight but purely in the province of some 'crat in the Department of Commerce or the State Department.

While we have very little that we need to worry about in all likelihood, better safe than sorry. When I set this site up, I discussed the issues with the ITAR specialist at the company I then worked for and his recommendation was to limit site membership to US, CA, AU, NZ and western European nations. After managing the website for so long, my finding is that anyone who registers on the site who is outside those countries is invariably a spammer or mining email addresses. There have been NO exceptions to that that I have seen.

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While I am glad that Steve has agreed to take over the day to day management of the website and to begin working to move the site forward with new code, I am still here and still exercise oversight of the site as a whole with an eye towards maintaining 100% uptime and site stability. As such, I still maintain control over major code and database changes to the live site as well as maintaining our relationship with our hosting company. If changes are made to the codebase without prior discussion with myself and the hosting company, the automated backup system at the hosting service WILL replace the code and the associated database with the last known working version (24 hours or less). I set this up with the hosting company when Jeremiah first took over writing code for the site just in case we had some sort of catastrophic crash and burn. Site uptime and stability is the primary goal - not making massive changes immediately without regard for continuity.

As for Steve's issues in setting up a development site at home, Steve, please be aware that we maintain 3 separate sites on our host - the live site that this post is on, a test site for testing code prior to roll-out to the live site and a development site specifically for the building and testing of all new code. I guess that this issue didn't get clearly discussed when we all met a month or so back. Until such time as we are all in clear agreement about what, when, and why - such changes should be run past me before roll-out to the live site.

I have no problem with getting things updated - in fact, I welcome the fact that someone has stepped forward to take this site to the next level, but my primary concern is maintaining a fully functional site WITH all historical data and forum postings. Changes to the contests are long overdue and that should be a major issue of discussion at the annual meeting. However, particular rule changes for things such as the altitude contest and such should certainly be discussed and agreed upon in executive committee with at least Joe Hinton, Chad Moore and myself before anything is changed on the site.

Most rules, such as the altitude contest rules, were developed over a period of many years of such discussions beginning long before I took over the site in 2004 as well as since then. If you're going to change rules, the affected folks need to be a part of the changes. In the past I always sought consensus for rule changes among the folks most involved in the contests. In the case of the altitude records section, that was predominantly the folks who thought of themselves as altitude junkies - myself, John Wilke, Jon Skuba, as well as with input from a wide range of other club members and visiting flyers who were interested. In fact, it was the inability to achieve consensus that was one of the primary reasons I shut down the altitude records contest.

Our current rules do need to change given the number of club members who now make their own or manufacture commercial altimeters - particularly issues of conflict of interest and verifiability at the LCO table when the altitude is reported. Those changes should be discussed and voted on by at least the executive committee and preferably by the club as a whole during the annual meeting.

I deal with ITAR issues all the time at work, because all specific technical information about spacecraft designs are covered. I'm not a lawyer, but I'm pretty sure that there's nothing we're discussing on this forum that is covered by ITAR regulations. If there were, letting people from Canada join but not China, would not help. There is an ITAR-related poster hanging at work that makes the point. It says: "Late breaking news! Canada is a foreign country!"

Yeah, I agree with you Adrian. However, the company lawyer I talked to was a conservative type. He was clearly of the opinion that as this was "hobby" stuff, we had no need to be concerned. After I explained to him some of the higher-end stuff people play with like active guidance, he said "Better safe than sorry".

As admin, I have generally refused access to ANYONE outside the US that does not have a verifiable TRA #. (I don't care about NAR or CAR - I'm not a member of either and neither have impressed me with their support for high power or more technically complex projects.) In the end, that leaves perhaps 5 Aussies, 2 Kiwi's, a couple Canucks like Dr. J, and Frank DeBoewer in the Netherlands. Beyond that I don't think we have any legitimate foreign registered website users. Then again, I gave up vetting who is actually in the user database when we had that massive spammer intrusion a few years ago. Last I checked we have 3885 registered users of which perhaps 50 are truly active in any sense - the rest are disabled from reading or posting. Most of those are spambots and the user management tools in our content management system makes it extremely difficult to purge them in bulk. Beyond that, I've just been too damn busy or distracted to waste several hours doing it manually via MySQL.

I have been following what Warren has recommended about tracking all IP address of those who request membership. The two that I did reject had rather suspicious names like "undertheladder" and were outside of the USA. If they were honestly interested, then they could have replied to my email.

As for any changes with the website, Warren has instructed me on the proper approval procedures and those will be respected.

That is why I have been working with a copy on my personal computer, as I explore "what does what" on our current website. There are many things happening under the covers with the SQL database that I want to fully understand.

Some items have already been suggested at my original meeting with Warren, Joe, Jeremiah and they have been my priority.

One simple thing that I want to change on the admin side, is to display the IP location of all new member requests with a simple button, without having to use another program.

Most of the high priority items are related to the display of images. The image on the home page is too large, and the photo album does not work.

Anyway, I am very careful and will not be making any changes on the active website until everyone is happy with the improvements.

Altitude records:

"In the case of the altitude records section, that was predominantly the folks who thought of themselves as altitude junkies - myself, John Wilke, Jon Skuba, as well as with input from a wide range of other club members and visiting flyers who were interested. In fact, it was the inability to achieve consensus that was one of the primary reasons I shut down the altitude records contest."

Nobody spends hundred or thousands of dollars building a highly technical rocket unless they are trying to set some type of record!

Warren's current rocket project impressed upon me now important the requirement of recording and archiving each altitude record attemp is to the people involved.

I intend to simply archive the information as recorded, with all of the hardware and software involved, as simple SQL database items.

If there are specific items that need to be recorded that I have not mentioned, then please let me know.

What y'all do with the information in the future is up to you, but it must be archived.

Perhaps that is the scientist in me. Raw data must always be recorded for historical analysis!

Nobody spends hundred or thousands of dollars building a highly technical rocket unless they are trying to set some type of record!

Sorry to disagree with you but this statement is completely wrong and shows how media influences perceptions. It is true that nearly all the nature of rocketry that draws us into the hobby is to have something go fast or go high and the media concentrates on such features. But there are many of us that spend much more than that on greater challenges than setting some arbitrary record.

Doug

I'm reposting what I wrote on another thread, with minor mods, because it's relevant here and it might have been missed before:

Different people get hooked on rocketry for different reasons. For me, the idea of flying a rocket higher than anyone else has flown for that motor class is kind of an irresistible challenge. If it weren't for the NCR and Triopli record lists, I probably wouldn't have built half of the rockets that I have, or produced and sold altimeters at all. So I was quite disappointed to find out, months after the decision was made, that the NCR records list would no longer be kept up-to-date. And I've also been disappointed to have record-breaking flights of mine rejected from the Tripoli list, simply because I'm an altimeter manufacturer. Despite that, I'm still having fun breaking records because most of the satisfaction just comes from knowing I achieved my own goal, regardless of whether someone else acknowledges the accomplishment. Accuracy and completeness have been not been as high of a priority for some of the gatekeepers as I would want, but there's only so much I can do about that. Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, etc.

I'm glad there is at least Rockoon's unofficial list so that there's a place where someone starting out, who has some good ideas about how to squeeze out some more altitude, can learn the complete story about what has been accomplished. Not very many rocketeers are altitude junkies who care about the records, but for those of us who are into it, an accurate list is a great thing.

So much effort and worry is spent by the various list gatekeepers on keeping out bad applications, that they have made the lists more inaccurate by keeping out legitimate achievements. I know a couple of altitude junkies who are so put off by the hassle, aggravation, delays, and lack of trust implied by the application process, that they have stopped bothering making applications altogether. I'm almost there myself. But I keep sending them in so that I'm doing my part to keep the lists accurate. If the gatekeepers would just take a deep breath and trust the integrity of their fellow rocketeers, then I think that we would have a more vibrant and active community of people going for records, as well as more accurate lists. John Wilke had the right attitude when he told me when I was starting out: "Come on in, the water's fine."

I hope that we re-establish NCR's record list and maintain it in an accurate and complete manner. If the club decides not to do that, I can get over it as I have already done. I would hope that we would not keep the record list incomplete just because one or two people want it that way.
If we decide as a club to refresh the altitude record list, the current list is missing flights of mine in H, I, J, and L. All were fully documented to Tripoli's standards, and I still have the witness-signed record forms, etc.

John Wilke has a high I flight that's an official Tripoli record, too, that should be on our list. There may be others.

I must stand up here and make a "Mea Culpa" style apology - in particular to Adrian, but to the all the other "altitude junkies".

For years, there was very little choice in altimeters - Adept, Olsen, Perfectflight, Missileworks and a few other minor manufacturers. All of them reported altitude immediately and with little if any in the way of data beyond the beeps or blinks reported. At one time, I had a conversation with Jim Amos, manufacturer of Missileworks products, about why he didn't add some of his very impressive flights to the altitude record database. His reply was in essence that regardless of whether he flew a production altimeter or not, there was always the potential issue of a conflict of interest in that he designed the altimeter, wrote the code and manufactured them and there was no way for anyone to know or for him to prove that it wasn't a cherry-picked device - either with different code or hand-picked parts and so rather than put himself in that position, he completely recused himself from participating. That struck me as a most honorable position to take. When I've told that story, most fliers I spoke agreed with that position.

When Adrian first produced The Parrot, his original altimeter product, I was hugely impressed from a geek and technical perspective. In fact. I consider Adrian's products to be far superior in terms of accuracy and precision than any other commercial altimeter. However, this led to quite a few discussions, some quite heated, that post-flight data reduction and analysis had no place in a contest that depended on the LCO at the flight table and 2 witnesses to immediately report the altitude on the flight card following the flight. The Parrot required off-line data reduction and analysis to report the altitude. In addition, its barometric altitude was based on a much-needed update to the so-called "Standard Atmospheric Model" used by every other commercial altimeter on the market at the time. Quite a few fliers felt that this was an Apples-to-Oranges sort of comparison and without significant data from flights using both his and other manufacturer's altimeters, we couldn't decide which would the more accurate or whether his approach to processing barometric data would result in an competitive advantage. In fact, in quite a few early flights, we were seeing altitudes substantially higher than either Rocksim predicted or similar birds achieved using other altimeters.

Prior to this point in time, most of us altitude junkies had a fairly even view of altimeters and that an altitude reported by a Missileworks, Perfectflight, Adept, Olsen, etc. altimeter would all be in the same ballpark and we were playing on what appeared to be a level playing field. The Parrot and then The Raven changed that. From an engineering and scientific perspective, I will gladly admit that I consider Adrian's products technically superior and in all likelihood report a more accurate AGL altitude than the others. However, we come back to the Apples and Oranges dispute. Is it fair to compare altitudes determined in one fashion (based on the Standard Model) with altitudes based on a different model? Is it fair to compare the quick and dirty in flight altitudes reported by the bulk of altimeters on the market to altitudes that have been determined by post-flight data reduction, smoothing, etc.?

Then enter TRA - the national organization - and their complete reorganization of their own altitude records rules and methodology and add on top of that their requirement that altitudes above 25K' AGL would need to be determined by post-flight analysis of RAW GPS data. In case you don't know, that isn't the straight NMEA strings all GPS chips produce but the underlying data behind it involving detailed timing analysis of the signals from multiple GPS satellites. While TRA may have or acquire the technology to do that for a world altitude record, it was way beyond my capabilities as far as maintaining the records database. Beyond that, my ongoing discussions with many of the altitude junkies were far from a consensus and the discussion heated up to the point where several folks, myself included, have completely backed away from competing on a playing field that we could not agree was level.

Now some folks may feel that I over-reacted by just shutting down the contest - they are very likely correct. I was just sick of dealing with differences of opinion and what was turning into rather heated discussions in an area where there had previously been only consensus. From my perspective, this club is a place to encourage and support community amongst the participants in this esoteric hobby of ours and given that I saw several close friends back away from the contest and the hobby because of these disputes, I felt that to continue it given our limitations, wasn't a good thing for the club. One result was I resigned as Contest Director last year, dumping it on Chad Moore. Another result is I and several flyers I know (to remain anonymous) just stopped playing the game. It was my feeling that until some kind of consensus evolved in the club and in the hobby as a whole, the whole thing should be placed on hold.

In that act, I know I've done a disservice to the many altitude junkies who have put great time and effort into their projects and making their flights. For this I apologize, I just couldn't come up with a path that both addressed their needs and that helped to form consensus and comity amongst club members.

It is my hope that Adrian, Bdale, Chad and the rest of the executive committee, perhaps with guidance from the TRA Altitude Records Committee can thrash this whole thing out and that the club can have an open discussion at the Annual Meeting so that a consensus can be formed as to what is fair and what constitutes a level playing field.

Again, Mea Maximum Culpa from me to the club as a whole and to those who my decision has affected.

Oh yeah, THE #1 thing I'd love to see is a "Like" button on forum posts.

Apology accepted, Warren. I know you have been doing your best on this and your heart is in the right place. There is one assertion that you are making that is incorrect, however, that I think has been at the root of the controversy. I'm sorry that I have probably contributed to the misunderstanding, so let me try to clear this one up:

The fact is that every Parrot used to apply for a record, and every Raven, period, uses the same standard atmosphere model that every other altimeter does. There is no difference in technique that would cause Raven or Parrot altimeters to read higher than any other altimeter. It's a fact supported by the evidence that for every flight where a Raven reads higher than another brand of altimeter, I can show you another flight where it reads lower. For example, on my L record flight in October, which had a Raven, a Telemetrum, and a Beeline GPS, the Raven read lower than the GPS or the Telemetrum's baro sensor.

Where I think this misunderstanding got started was from way back when I first started making Parrots in 2007. At that time, I didn't have a reference pressure gauge to do the calibrations with. I did have a car and USGS elevation maps, however, so I drove a Parrot on I-70 to Silverthorne, and recorded data along the way so that I could calibrate that altimeter's altitude readings. I then used that unit to calibrate other altimeters in my vacuum chamber. What I didn't realize until a few months later was that that method would produce somewhat higher altitude readings than if I had calibrated against a reference pressure gauge and then converted pressure to altitude using the standard atmosphere model. The standard atmosphere model under-predicts altitude when the air temperature is warmer than 39F at 5000 feet elevation, which included when I did my test drive. Once I understood this issue, I bought a reference pressure gauge and from then on, I calibrated against that standard so that the readings would be equivalent to all other baro-based altimeters. That handful of initial units that read a little higher (and more comparable to what a GPS unit would) were never used for a record application by me, or as far as I know, by anyone else.

Since then I made hundreds of Parrot V2 altimeters that use the standard atmosphere model, and now over 1200 Raven altimeters. All of the Raven altimeters have the additional benefit that the whole pressure measurement system is calibrated at the chip factory, not by me, and is extremely accurate over a wide range of sensor temperatures. There would be no point in cherry-picking a Raven, even if I wanted to, because they are all the same. The current Tripoli rules state that if you want to set a Tripoli record, you have to use a Raven altimeter that comes from the group of 20 Ravens that Tripoli bought for that purpose. John Beans, who makes the Jolly Logic altimeters, told me recently that when he tests the altimeters he makes for accuracy, he flies them on a sled next to a Raven altimeter.

All of the record applications I mentioned before that I would like to see on the list, were made using a Raven altimeter. Thanks for listening.

Well then Adrian, I owe you an even larger apology. From early discussions you and I had when you were developing the Parrot, I got the impression you were working to come up with a better model (given the limits of the SAM) and were using a NIST-traceable pressure chamber to test and calibrate.

I won't burden the forum with further blatherings - just know that I deeply apologize for my own errant assumptions and the impact that they have had on my thinking over the last few years.

I do propose that we have an open discussion on this topic at the annual meeting if we can get enough of the interested parties together for the discussion. I will gladly re-enable the altitude contest code and we can move forward.

Again, my sincere apologies.

W

Thanks, Warren, for accepting the correction of this misunderstanding with such grace. No hard feeling here.