San Antonio Hams

The Beaumont Amateur Radio Club will be launching another High Altitude Near Space Balloon on Saturday, May 31, 2014 around 8am.  

Actual launch time will very, depending on launch preparations and weather conditions that morning.

Launch site will be the Beaumont Municipal Airport, 455 Keith Road at Hwy 90 (College Street), Beaumont, Texas

Pay Load Includes:

• APRS/GPS positioning/locating for altitude, direction, distance and speed. Can watch this info live via RF or from www.aprs.fi.  Call sign for the balloon will be W5RIN-8.   Here is a direct link.. http://aprs.fi/#!mt=roadmap&z=11&call=a%2FW5RIN-8&timerange=3600&tail=3600
• Telemetry to monitor Package Temperature, Ambient Temperature, Battery Voltage
• HAM Radio Live Feed TV Camera (Slow scan TV?)
• HAM Radio Cross Band Repeater:
  • Uplink to Balloon: 446.000 MHz
  • Down Link from Balloon: 146.565 MHz

More information about past balloon launches by the Beaumont Amateur Radio Club can be found online at http://www.qsl.net/w5rin/

From QRZ.Com comes the following information about another balloon launch that happened on March 29th.  This balloon isn’t using APRS, but has a QRP 10 meters CW beacon.   Thanks Greg N5XO for bringing it to our attention – Lee N5NTG

A long duration balloon mission that is using 6 Party Balloons to carry a 50 gram amateur radio 28.223 MHz CW beacon, is hoping to go around the world.  The ballon was released at 2330 UT (1930 EDT) March 29, from Annapolis in Maryland and started it’s journey heading SE at 6 knots. By 0300 UT, March 30, it had reached a speed of 60 MPH (96 km/h).  It has no APRS, just the 28.223 MHz CW telemetry system and it is hoped to locate it by signal strength and beam headings only. 

Note: Wind projections show the balloon heading east over the Atlantic Ocean, but with band openings, who knows? Even Greg N5XO might luck out and hear it… LOL

The mission is to give an insight into constant-pressure balloons and especially the use of common mylar party balloons as a fixed volume envelope. Unfortunately, these balloons have a high mass and so the theoretical maximum altitude no matter how many balloons are used is only about 26,000 feet and that is with no payload other than the fixed balloon mass.

The payload weighs about 50 grams. The team are targeting 6 party balloons 3′ in diameter which should give a float altitude around 16,000 feet. The Telemetry will be in CW on 28.223 MHz (USB DIAL) and will contain Battery voltage, inside and outside temperatures, and surface luminosity of the ocean/clouds. It has no GPS. The team will rely entirely on DF bearings and signal reports.

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Yesterday morning, Saturday, March 31st, Hams helped students & teachers from the Lehman High School Radio Club  launch a small weather balloon from the school, about 2 miles ENE of Kyle, Texas, running APRS using the Call Sign of NN5RR-11.   (Track it here online)  It landed a few hours later at 1.3 miles East bearing 76° from Martindale, in  Caldwell County, Texas.  Raw tracking info can be viewed here.

The weather cooperated for an 9am launch of a small test balloon on Saturday morning. It was picked up by digipeaters and I-Gates and appeared on aprs.fi. Ross Russell, NN5RR, was the instigator of the flight, and pre-flight planning was shared via the HCHams Yahoo group.

Because of the risk of losing the payload for this test flight, they kept the cost down by using the Byonics MT-RTG TNC/2m transmitter combo and a cheap HD camcorder.

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