[OZAPRS] Balloon

Wed Jul 19 14:39:46 EST 2006

Gday Craig,

This is a great project!

I have a few questions on some of the details that you may be able to
answer.

What do you expect the direction of flight to be?
What distance do you think the balloon may travel?
What is you estimated flight time?
Do you expect the balloon to land gently?
What's the standby current of the Maxon and your power budget?

There is some talk of another balloon project in VK3 latter in the year.
It
would be great to learn a bit from your project.

Cheers
Richard
VK3JFK

> -----Original Message-----
> From: ozaprs-bounces at aprs.net.au [mailto:ozaprs-bounces at aprs.net.au] On
> Behalf Of Craig Turner
> Sent: Wednesday, 19 July 2006 10:35 AM
> To: vk4tec at tech-software.net; VK / ZL APRS Users
> Subject: Re: [OZAPRS] Balloon
> 
> Thanks all to the input so far.
> 
> I do hope the launch now goes ahead on Friday. The balloon construction
> URL is now working
> http://www.alistairdickie.com
> 
> I plan to leave my home computer  with UI-View connected to the VK IS
> feed and tracking both my car and the balloon, so hopefully I if I loose
> it on direct RF I may be able to check the logs, I may even have to send
> out a BUL if I loose it in case anyone else is picking it up on RF.
> 
> I'm thinking if it reaches a potential altitude of 40'000 feet (which
> Alistair believes it may), it should hit quite a few digipeaters
> throughout VK2, so a greater concern is payload failure, rather than
> loosing the signal.
> 
> In answer to a few questions, it is no longer tethered to the clothes
> line, I've bought it in to make some mods. It should go up again some
> time this morning. I am going to continue a beacon time of 3 minutes in
> testing, although I've had a few good suggestions for smart beaconing
> settings. At the moment I am sticking to 3 minute beacons because smart
> beaconing won't really work that well when its hanging off the clothes
> line! But I am going to 'model' a few smart beacon settings. Its a pity
> I can't use altitude as part of the algorithm.
> 
> My concern with a longer beacon time is that if it beacons, say 5
> minutes before final impact, it could still be moving at around 20-30
> kph before impact, that means it could travel 2-3k before final impact.
> If the transmitter ceases transmission on impact that could be a fairly
> large search area!
> 
> I'm already thinking for my next project I will use a TNC-X with a fixed
> beacon and a PIC feeding APRS formatted telemetry into the TNC-X's
> serial port..This would also allow commands to be transmitted to the
> balloon as well (such as cutting the payload away from the balloon etc)
> 
> Anyway, I will give more updates if people are interested, and probably
> start a launch site object 12hrs prior to launch.
> 
> The Object will be IC1_LC-xx where xx is the proposed launch. I will
> change the object to IC1_LC+ once the launch has succeeded, or replace
> it with IC1_ABRT if the launch aborts.
> 
> I will also send a bulletin 12 hrs prior, and at the moment of launch .
> 
> Awaiting some feed back from CASA and the right weather now.
> 
> Regards
> Craig
> 
> Andrew Rich wrote:
> > I am tracking it on google earth as well (add as a network link)
> >
> >
> > VK1HCT-11 Position
> >
> > http://db.aprsworld.net/datamart/googleEarth.php?call=VK1HCT-11
> >
> > VK1HCT-11 Line
> >
> > http://vk4tec.no-ip.org/cgi-bin/google_line.cgi?Call=vk1HCT-11
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > -----------------------------------------
> > Andrew Rich
> > Amateur radio callsign VK4TEC
> > email: vk4tec at tech-software.net <mailto:vk4tec at tech-software.net>
> > web: http://www.tech-software.net
> > Brisbane AUSTRALIA
> >
> >
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Craig Turner [mailto:craig at craigturner.id.au]
> > Sent: Tuesday, 18 July 2006 11:32 PM
> > To: Tony Hunt; VK / ZL APRS Users
> > Subject: Re: [OZAPRS] Balloon
> >
> >
> > Thanks Tony,
> >
> > We don't have a proposed launch time yet, Alistair wants to go as
early
> > as possible (wind is calmer for launch) I want to go as late as
possible
> > (worried about the power budget for a long flight!!)
> >
> > I will put details of the launch etc in the object status. I'm pretty
> > excited by the whole thing. Its only as I was putting it together that
I
> > really started to see the power of APRS. I will have the ability to
> > check localized weather conditions by using WX stations as I travel
etc.
> >
> > I do wish more use was made of APRS for objects, such as repeaters
etc,
> > as it would help to be able to instantly know what repeaters I'm in
> > range of. At the moment I am manually assembling a oziexplorer way
point
> > file with repeaters using the repeater map at vkham.com, but I think
> > some of the repeaters there are not active. I will experiment with
> > turning the waypoint file into an overlay file for UI-View as well.
> >
> > I'll take your advice on 40m under consideration, and it may be
> > problematic as I will be running a laptop with an inverter, which may
> > create a bit of hash on 40m. I'll give it a trial tomorrow in the car.
> >
> > I just checked, Alistair's page is down from my QTH as well. It was
> > working about 2 hours ago. I'll let him know.
> >
> > Regards
> > Craig
> > VK1HCT
> > Tony Hunt wrote:
> >
> >> Craig ..  This is great..
> >>
> >> A couple of things.. I could not get your friend Alistair's URL to
work
> >> here..
> >>
> >> Just on the 40m frequency. I would sugest something a bit higher than
> 7045
> >> .. Something above 7060 perhaps. Try 7110 or 7115 7105 even .. Its
hard
> >> somtimes to find a frequency clear between 7060 and 7100 .. Stations
> like
> >>
> > to
> >
> >> run all sorts of nets at odd times on some of those frequencies. 7070
> is a
> >> mobile call channel and Ive been told off for being on there while
> >>
> > driving..
> >
> >> I guess in VK5 we wont see much if anything here unless its via the
> >>
> > Internet
> >
> >> feed.
> >> Have you got a proposed launch time? Maybee in the status beacon of
the
> >> object you could include some info on launch time and wind direction
> >> expected ..
> >>
> >> Tony  Hunt  VK5AH
> >>
> >>
> >> _______________________________________________
> >> Ozaprs mailing list
> >> Ozaprs at aprs.net.au
> >> http://aprs.net.au/mailman/listinfo/ozaprs
> >>
> >>
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Ozaprs mailing list
> > Ozaprs at aprs.net.au
> > http://aprs.net.au/mailman/listinfo/ozaprs
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Ozaprs mailing list
> > Ozaprs at aprs.net.au
> > http://aprs.net.au/mailman/listinfo/ozaprs
> >
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Ozaprs mailing list
> Ozaprs at aprs.net.au
> http://aprs.net.au/mailman/listinfo/ozaprs

_______________________________________________
Ozaprs mailing list
Ozaprs at aprs.net.au
http://aprs.net.au/mailman/listinfo/ozaprs
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://second.aprs.net.au/pipermail/ozaprs/attachments/20060719/89d09056/attachment.htm 