On May 19, 2012 a high altitude amateur radio balloon was launched from La Pampa, Argentina, reaching 34 km. It carried a 430 MHz to 144 MHz band 4 watt CTCSS activated FM repeater, APRS lu7aa-11, Robot-36 live SSTV, CW, and 40/20m CW telemetry beacon with 2 video cameras. (Total weight 970 grams).

It also provided a practice run for the upcoming LUSEX satellite.

Details (in Google English) at http://tinyurl.com/AMSAT-LU-May2012-Balloon

During the 4 hour flight, over 200 stations made contacts through the balloon repeater mostly using dual band handies as part of a contest. The winner was from Uruguay and received a dual-band handheld. The participants got certificates http://www.amsat.org.ar/cx2tq.jpg

The balloon payload was recovered from a mud on October 6 by a 4×4 Adventure Group in an isolated and flooded area. They recovered the payload photos and data, see http://www.amsat.org.ar/rescate.jpg

Over 6 hours of video were taken by the two on-board cameras.

Watch the edited video

The experiment is part of the AMSAT-LU development and field tests as well as user practice for the LUSEX satellite http://www.lusex.org.ar/

It is planned to repeat the balloon flight during the Nov/Dec timeframe pending flight authorization by Argentina Federal Aviation Authorities.

73, LU7AA, AMSAT Argentina
http://www.amsat.org.ar
http://www.facebook.com/Amsat.LU