Tag Archives: High Altitude Balloon

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 15 2013

Brazilian APRS Balloon Launches Sunday

PV8AA_placa_gpsThe Liga de Amadores Brasileiros De Rádio Emissão will launch an APRS balloon PV8AA-11 on Sunday, November 17 at 1000 UT. It is expected to reach at altitude of 23 km and will transmit on 144.300 MHz CW and 145.570 MHz packet.

Radiosonde PV8AA – 11
PWR : 500mW
Antenna 1/4 wave .
Battery: Lithium Polymer 7.2V x 1.7 – Test duration : 11h
QRG Coordinates: 144.300 MHz CW Telemetry : 145.570 MHz Packet

Elevation data , internal and external temperature , battery voltage , number of transmission and satellite – GPS .
Balloon : 1m30cm/350gramas . Holds average of 3 cubic meters of Gas
Experiment : 315 grams + parachute rope : 75gramas
Maximum anticipated altitude : 23 km, rate of climb and descent : 5-6 m / s approx .

Local Release : 2 ° 50 45N 60 ° 41 56 W – Facilities EMA – BV .

Monitoring by SITE http://www.aprs.fi/ PV8AA – 11

Listener Report please send to : pv8aa at hotmail.com or pv8dx at arrl.net

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
Nov 12 2013

Ham Radio Balloon on 7, 10 and 14 MHz

Expected path of PSB-5 balloon

Expected path of PSB-5 balloon

This Saturday, November 16 Australian radio amateurs will launch a HF high altitude balloon, PSB-5, transmitting WSPR, JT65, THOR and Slow Scan Digital Video (SSDV).

Our PSB-5 balloon launch will be from Bendigo, Victoria  this Saturday, November 16, 2013 at 11am local time (0000 UT).

The details:
– 434.650 MHz USB for telemetry and SSDV images. RTTY 450 Hz shift, 300 baud, 8 bit ASCII, no parity, one stop bit.
– HF for telemetry, on 20m, 30m and 40m in alternate time slots. The protocols are WSPR, JT65 and THOR4.
– Hardware includes a Raspberry Pi computer with Pi-Cam, and 25 mW UHF tracker.

Using JT65 and THOR on dial (USB) frequencies of 7.0285, 10.1405, 14.0785 MHz
with WSPR on dial (USB) frequencies of 7.0386, 10.1387, 14.0956 MHz

PSB-5 balloon positions will be uploaded to http://spacenear.us/tracker

SSDV images will be available at http://ssdv.habhub.org or on dl-fldigi if you receive SSDV directly.

On the day we will have a co-ordinator in #PSB IRC chat room on freenode.net
http://webchat.freenode.net/?channels=PSB

To receive balloon data you will need access to SSB HF and UHF radios.

Dl-fldigi can be used to decode THOR4 and RTTY/SSDV.

JT65 and WSPR require their own software
http://www.physics.princeton.edu/pulsar/K1JT/wsjtx.html and
http://physics.princeton.edu/pulsar/K1JT/wspr.html

Please see http://projectspaceballoon.net/ for details.

Pre-flight test HF transmissions were received from as far as VK6 for JT65 and USA for WSPR.

The reception range for HF transmissions from the balloon should be all around Australia and NZ when the condition is good.

Assistance with tracking is greatly appreciated.

73, Andy Nguyen VK3YT

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

Slow Scan Digital Video (SSDV) Guide http://ukhas.org.uk/guides:ssdv

Nov 3 2013

Diwali Return for APRS Balloon Payload

Dhruva Space Balloon Payload

Dhruva Space Balloon Payload

The payload of the Indian amateur radio APRS balloon launched on October 13, 2013 has been successfully retrieved.

The balloon payload was returned to Dhruva Space on November 3 during Diwali (Festival of Lights).

The balloon had been launched from the Indian Institute of Astrophysics, Bangalore and drifted into the Arabian sea, off the coast of Udupi. Ham radio operators in Karnataka and Goa in India, and the Middle East and Africa were able to track the APRS signal, containing real time location, altitude and other operating conditions of the flight, for over 600 km into the Arabian sea.

The payload was found about 42.6 km off the coast of Gangoli, Karnataka on October 15 at 11 AM by the sailors of the fishing boat “Suvarna Lakshmi”.

It was only possible to trace the payload because one of the sailors used the sim card that was in one of the pieces of equipment in the payload.

Indian Record for Tracking Ham Radio Balloon
https://amsat-uk.org/2013/10/20/indian-record-for-tracking-ham-radio-balloon/

High Altitude Balloon to Study Comet ISON
https://amsat-uk.org/2013/09/28/high-altitude-balloon-to-study-comet-ison/