Tag Archives: HAB

Dec 20 2013

Santa uses 434.075 MHz during sleigh test

Mark and Cassie of STRATODEAN

Mark and Cassie of STRATODEAN

BBC TV News has reported on the 434.075 MHz STRATODEAN balloon carrying Santa and Rudolf that was launched from Coleford, Gloucestershire, UK.

The BBC say that amateur scientists Cassie Phelps and Mark Ireland, from the Forest of Dean, successful launched Santa and Rudolf into near-space 30 km above the Earth.

STRATODEAN report that when Santa finished off the modifications to the 2013 sleigh like all good engineers he opted to test the new changes before rolling it out into production and went to STRATODEAN for help! (It’s been a very well kept secret that they provide technical facilities to all their famous mythical friends. The Tooth Fairy and Easter Bunny are already well established customers.)

They were given a clear project remit – to take him up and down on their payload to allow him to test the new handling abilities of his sleigh. Apparently the cost of reindeer propulsion (magic flying dust) has skyrocketed in the last few years and he can only justify the once a year purchase for Christmas due to Mrs Clauses’ bingo habit and the increasing Elf wages. Furthermore, for this test he can only bring Rudolf as the other reindeer are getting on a bit and they need to save their knees.

Watch the STRATODEAN video of the flight

Mark and Cassie with a STRATODEAN High Altitude Balloon

Mark and Cassie with a STRATODEAN High Altitude Balloon

The telemetry downlink from the balloon was on 434.075 MHz using 50 bps 350 Hz shift FSK with ASCII-7 code, 2 stop bits and no parity.

Watch the BBC TV news story – Amateur scientists attach a model of Santa Claus to a weather balloon
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-25470809

Read The Telegraph story at
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/topics/christmas/christmas-videos/10529615/Santa-and-Rudolph-spotted-in-orbit.html

STRATODEAN
Web http://www.stratodean.co.uk/
Twitter https://twitter.com/stratodean

A video of the STRATODEAN High Altitude Balloon Presentation given by Cassie Phelps and Mark Ireland to the annual AMSAT-UK International Space Colloquium in Guildford last July can be seen at
https://amsat-uk.org/2013/07/22/video-of-stratodean-high-altitude-balloon-presentation/

To get up-to-date information on balloon flights subscribe to the UKHAS Mailing List by sending a blank email to this address:
ukhas+subscribe@googlegroups.com

Dec 18 2013

How high-altitude balloon missions stay on track

Mark and Cassie with their STRATODEAN High Altitude Balloon

Mark and Cassie with their STRATODEAN High Altitude Balloon

In The Register Lester Haines interviews radio amateur Daniel Richman M0ZDR (ex-M6DRX) about the impressive Cambridge University Space Flight (CUSF) Landing Predictor.

Rob Anderson wrote the original landing predictor for High Altitude Balloons in 2008. Since then it’s been continually updated to improve performance, and now offers anyone wanting to send a balloon aloft the chance of seeing very quickly indeed just where it’ll burst and where they should head to recover their precious load.

Others who’ve worked on the predictor in the past five years are Fergus Noble M0NBL, Ed Moore M0TEK, Jon Sowman M0JSN and Adam Greig M0RND.

Read Fair winds and following servers: The art of flight prediction
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/12/18/lohan_flight_prediction/

CUSF Landing Predictor http://predict.habhub.org/

Daniel then M6DRX was one of three pupils at the Reading School who in 2010 built the Alien-1 high altitude balloon http://www.southgatearc.org/news/may2010/alien_1_launch.htm

To get up-to-date information on balloon flights subscribe to the UKHAS Mailing List by sending a blank email to this address: ukhas+subscribe@googlegroups.com

Nov 30 2013

Introduction to High Altitude Ballooning

Phil Crump M0DNY

Phil Crump M0DNY

In this video Phil Crump M0DNY of the UK High Altitude Society (UKHAS) gives an introduction to High Altitude Ballooning (HAB). The presentation was given to the BATC Convention on October 26, 2013.

Watch Introduction to High Altitude Ballooning

Noel Matthews G8GTZ, Chair of the BATC, has announced the first 11 presentation videos from the CAT13 convention on ATV/DATV, held October 26, 2013, have been put up on the BATC video archive area.

They can be found in the http://batc.tv/ Film Archive by selecting the BATC CAT13 category.

The direct links are available via https://amsat-uk.org/2013/10/29/iss-hamtv-presentation-by-g3vzv/

UK High Altitude Society http://ukhas.org.uk/

To get up-to-date information on balloon flights subscribe to the UKHAS Mailing List by sending a blank email to this address:
ukhas+subscribe@googlegroups.com

Nov 14 2013

Czech Statocaching APRS ham radio balloon

Dropion Releasing Stratocache Radio SeedsStratocaching which launches Saturday, November 16 at 0800 UT (144.800 MHz FM APRS) aims to combine amateur radio stratospheric balloons with the popular pastime of Geocaching.

We would like to announce our first experimental flight STRATOCACHING as a result of  cooperation between Žádná věda association and Stsproject.net.
Launch Date: November 16, 2013
Launch Time: 8:00 UTC
Launch Location: Czech Hydrometeorological Institute Prague, Czech Republic
Stratocaching is a unique idea combining launch of a stratospheric balloon with a geocaching game. The Czech association Žádná věda (meaning Not a Rocket Science) with a cooperation of Stsproject.net is going to launch a special ballon set with a gondola called Dropion that includes 12 flying modules with GPS trackers called Stratocache. The modules (an imitation of maple seed design) will be released in the stratosphere and after they fall somewhere in the Czech republic (hopefully!), a geocaching hunt for Stratocaches will be started. The project has attracted many fans (there are 60.000 active geocachers in the Czech Republic) – and currently 11.000 „stratocachers“ registered for this  game.
Specifications:
·         Balloon Hwoyee: 3000g filled with helium
·         Total weight of payload: 3000g
·         Chute: Sperachute 72“
·         Estimated Ascent/ descent: 5-6 m/s up, 4 m/s down
·         Dropion: 1800g, made of styrodur, design inspired by nature (the name originally come from „drop- onion“)
·         Stratocache: 93 g, 40cm long, falls down rotating as a maple pod (2,5 m/s), with a GPS tracker Meitrack MT90 (replaced battery pack – Energizer Lithium)
·         Radioseed: 2 of the 12 „maple seeds“ bear a different tracking technology: RTTY+CW tracker
·         Electronic systems: APRS tracker, RTTY+CW tracker, Arduino computer, pyrotechnic system for releasing Stratocaches and balloon cutoff, IP video stream module (IP camera Axis M2014, PoE injector router Microtic), video recording module (GoPro Hero 3)
·         Altitude: the launch of Stratocaches and the balloon trajectory will be limited by a flight plan programmed in Arduino computer based on the wheather conditions (maximal altitude 30.000). The aim is to end the flight within the borders of the Czech Republic
Trackers onboard:
DROPION:
Callsign: OK1OMX – UKHAS RTTY 300Bd, 7N2, 450 Hz shift, freq 437.650 MHz, SSB/USB

OK1OMX-11 – APRS, freq 144.8 MHz

RADIOSEEDS:
Seed1 – UKHAS RTTY 300Bd, 7N2, 450 Hz shift, freq 437.670 MHz, SSB/USB
Seed2 – UKHAS RTTY 300Bd, 7N2, 450 Hz shift, freq 437.690 MHz, SSB/USB
All the trackers are using CW ID with HAM callsign  in between rtty sentences. Seed1 and Seed2 trackers will transmit in CW altitude and locator also.
Best regards,
Ivan Sobička
Sep 28 2013

High Altitude Balloon to Study Comet ISON

A high altitude balloon launch - Image credit Dhruva Space

A high altitude balloon launch – Image credit Dhruva Space

An amateur radio balloon operating on 145.765 MHz will be launched on Sunday, September 29, 2013 from Bangalore, India.

National Institute of Amateur Radio, Hyderabad with Dhruva Space, India’s first small satellite start-up, is supporting the Indian Institute of Astrophysics with its high altitude balloon campaign to study the comet ISON.

The Helium filled balloon plans to launch in early Sunday morning from the Hoskote campus of the Indian Institute of Astrophysics, Bangalore.

The payload will carry a 145.765 MHz APRS packet radio transmitter and a GPS GSM tracker, both of these are extremely important in keeping track of the balloon in flight, as it rises up to 40 km reaching the upper stratosphere. NIAR are extensively involved in the efforts of tracing and safely recovery of the payload.

On the afternoon of September 29 there will be a presentation given on “Amateur Radio For High Altitude Ballooning” by Dhruva Space. Mr S.Ram Mohan, VU2MYH, Director, National Institute of Amateur Radio will speak on APRS technologies for tracking.

National Institute of Amateur Radio (NIAR) http://www.niar.org/

Dhruva Space http://dhruvaspace.com/

Wiki – Comet ISON http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C/2012_S1

Sep 1 2013

Long duration 434.5 MHz balloon launched

A small foil pico balloon - Image credit Leo Bodnar

A small foil pico balloon – Image credit Leo Bodnar

Late Sunday afternoon, September 1, Leo Bodnar launched a long-duration pico balloon running DominoEX 16 on 434.500 MHz USB. It is expected to travel across Europe.

The balloon was launched from Silverstone and aims to test some solar power modes and check for altitude stability.

The expected flight path is at http://ready.arl.noaa.gov/hypubout/15224_trj001.gif

Downlink data contains of two lines of telemetry every ~2 minutes during the daytime and ~5 minutes in the night.  The time between data is filled with beeps at 3 sec intervals.

Flight name: B-11
Frequency:   434.500 MHz, USB, DominoEX 16
Balloon:     36″ foil Qualatex, Helium
Launch site: Silverstone Circuit, UK

Pico balloons are proving increasing popular with amateurs. The small foil party balloons can only carry ultra light balloon payloads, typically weighing less than 100 grams. This presents a challenge to the builders to produce a transmitter, GPS, batteries and antenna that are small and light enough to be carried.

Balloons such as these do not go to extremes of altitude but can float at between 3,000 and 7,000 metres for an extended period. The 434 MHz transmitters can have a radio range of 300 km.

Leo Bodnar balloons http://www.leobodnar.com/balloons/

Real-time track of B-11 and other balloons http://spacenear.us/tracker/

Beginners Guide to Tracking using dl-fldigi http://ukhas.org.uk/guides:tracking_guide

To get details of upcoming UK balloon launches subscribe to the UKHAS Mailing List by sending a blank email to this address:
ukhas+subscribe@googlegroups.com

UKHAS Balloon Conference Saturday, September 7, London – live web streaming
https://amsat-uk.org/2013/08/14/amateur-radio-foundation-exam-and-nb-tv-at-ukhas-conference/