Tag Archives: HAB

Apr 13 2013

UK 434 MHz balloons over Central Europe

A Raspberry Pi computer board

A Raspberry Pi computer board

On Saturday, April 13 at 1000 UT, two balloons both carrying 434 MHz transmitters were launched from Cambridge, UK . One transmitting video images from a Rapsberry Pi computer board, the other carried a 144.800 MHz APRS beacon M0UPU-11 in addition to the 434 MHz beacon.

The first balloon PIE5 is flying a Raspberry Pi computer board which transmitted live Slow Scan Digital Video (SSDV) images back to the ground by a pair of transmitters to double the bandwidth. The data was RTTY 300 baud 8N2. The frequencies used were 434.070 and 434.074 MHz. The balloon call sign was $$PIE.

The second balloon AVA flew a 70cms tracker on 434.450 MHz 50 baud 7N2. Additionally once it entered air space where the airborne use of APRS is permitted a second APRS transmitter was enabled (the APRS frequency is 144.800 MHz) with the call sign M0UPU-11.

The balloons had been expected to head for Poland and on Saturday evening they were over Germany but by early Sunday morning PIE5 was over Switzerland and AVA was over Austria.

The 434 MHz downlinks  on the balloons are generated using Radiometrix NTX2 transmitter modules, the batteries were expected to last 24 hours.

A third balloon callsign XABEN transmitting on 434.350MHz, 470Hz shift, 7N1 was also launched. Tthis was configured to have a short lifetime, going straight-up until the balloon burst rather than floating at 30km across Europe.

Live video of the launch was streamed by the British Amateur TV Club (BATC) at http://www.batc.tv/

Tracks of both balloons are at http://www.spacenear.us/tracker

Direct link to M0UPU-11 APRS track
http://aprs.fi/#!call=a%2FM0UPU-11&timerange=86400&tail=86400

Images from the PIE5 Raspberry Pi balloon transmitted using SSDV can be seen at http://ssdv.habhub.org/

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

Twitter #ukhas https://twitter.com/search?q=%23ukhas

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

Digital Slow Scan Video http://ukhas.org.uk/guides:ssdv

Mar 15 2013

AMSAT-LU to launch amateur radio FM repeater to an altitude of 30 km

AMSAT-LU SSTV and GPS Payload

View of communications experiment: Below is the plate of the repeater. Top left is the SSTV camera and top right is the GPS receiver module. Image credit LU7AA

On Saturday, March 23 at 1400 UT AMSAT-LU plan to launch a High Altitude Balloon (HAB) carrying a 435.950/145.950 MHz FM repeater, a SSTV transmitter on 145.850 MHz and an APRS transmitter on 144.930 MHz.

The 145.850 MHz SSTV ROBOT-36 mode images will be transmitted in real time showing the view from the balloon. The images can be displayed by using free software such as MMSSTV.

Since 145.850 MHz is the input frequency for the amateur radio satellite SO-50, part of the experiment will be a link between the balloon and the satellite with SO-50 retransmitting the SSTV images on 436.7950 MHz over a far wider area.

At an altitude of 30 km the FM repeater, which uses a 123 Hz CTCSS tone, could have a range of up to 750 km.

AMSAT-LU have issued the following announcement:

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Jan 9 2013

Radio Hams BBC Stargazing Live Balloon Picture

BBC Sky Balloon image received by Graeme 2I0WGM and Philip MI0VIM

BBC Sky Balloon image received by Graeme 2I0WGM and Philip MI0VIM

Graeme 2I0WGM and Philip MI0VIM got some publicity for the Mid-Ulster Amateur Radio Club by submitting a picture received from a BBC balloon on 434.650 MHz.

It was a BBC Stargazing Live experiment to send a balloon to the stratosphere that would tweet data from near space. The SWIFT balloon carried a transmitter on 434.650 MHz that sent pictures using 300 bps FSK and reached an altitude of 18.982 km.

Graeme 2I0WGM and Philip MI0VIM submitted their picture to the BBC which can be seen at
https://twitter.com/BBCSkyBalloon/status/289016211143016448/photo/1

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Dec 12 2012

APRS High Altitude Balloon Flight in Vietnam

The FSpace team of young engineers and students at the FPT University have successfully launched and recovered a High Altitude Balloon that carried an amateur radio APRS payload on 145.980 MHz.

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Oct 17 2012

AMSAT-LU Stratospheric Amateur Radio Balloon Video

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.

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Aug 30 2012

HamRadioNow interview with Erin King AK4JG

Erin King AK4JG being interviewed by Gary Pearce KN4AQ of HamRadioNow

Erin King AK4JG, a 17-year-old from Columbus, Georgia, was named Amateur Radio Newsline’s Young Ham of the Year for 2012. She re-founded her high school’s radio club and then built a ham radio-carrying balloon that got to 91,000 feet (27.7 km), recovered the flight data and used it to produce a truly striking video of the flight.

She’s just starting her Freshman year at MIT. Yes, she’s exceptional, but she exhibits the qualities we like to see in every young ham.

In this video she is interviewed by Gary Pearce KN4AQ at the Huntsville Hamfest.

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