Spirit of Knoxville IV balloon launches Tuesday 11th March

[g4tut]

Spirit of Knoxville IV balloon launches Tuesday 11th March

Spirit of Knoxville IV (SNOX IV) launch date has been set at 0300 UT on Tuesday 11th March. The balloon with carry a RTTY LSB/CW beacon on 10.126 MHz.

This flight is designed to stay aloft for more than 24 hours, inserted into the current jet stream at normal flight altitudes of 30,000 to 40,000 ft. This will take the balloon into Europe over the UK and France if all goes well around 40 hours into the flight.

Launch Time: 0300 UTC March 11 (10 PM EDT March 10) Track the mission live at: http://www.spiritofknoxville.com (the Live status page will only become active at launch)

Keep an eye on the latest progress from the launch team on the front page of spiritofknoxville.com or by using twitter to follow twitter user "spiritofknox".

Radio listeners: Flight radio details will be available on the DTRC status page which opens when you run the current version of DTRC.

Download DTRC from http://dtrc.utarc.org

Thanks,

Spirit of Knoxville Crew






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[n5ark]

Nothing heard in Arkansas yet...almost missed it was thinking it was tomorrow...Hopefully I will able to pick up some sigs from the baloon.

Wonder why they chose to use 30m? Just curious. I did not see anywhere why..

Listening for anything..oh wait I thin I might have just heard a little something...will keep posted till i fall asleep...

I would love to get into balooning..something I always wanted to do..

[wa5tcz]

Im hering the ritty signal here in Baton rouge ,la .
I have no way to decode the beacon.
The signal is S7 t0 S8 on S meter.
Darron WA5TCZ

[kr4wm]

Many of us don't monitor balloon launch websites. It would be nice to give us a couple weeks notice here on QRZ.com or eHam.net instead of a one-day (or less) notice so we can make plans to monitor for the signal.

It's 1549UTC tuesday here now, I just read about the balloon for the first time, and the balloon was launched over 12 hours ago. I'm hearing nothing in Myrtle Beach, SC. -KR4WM

[kr4wm]

Some jerk is now on 10.126 sending CW dashes. (1823UTC). It might be a very fast FAX signal. Average S5 here, peaking S7. I don't think it's the balloon...(?) Not hearing any RTTY or CW. -KR4WM

[K4HSM]

Many of us don't monitor balloon launch websites. It would be nice to give us a couple weeks notice here on QRZ.com or eHam.net instead of a one-day (or less) notice so we can make plans to monitor for the signal.

It's 1549UTC tuesday here now, I just read about the balloon for the first time, and the balloon was launched over 12 hours ago. I'm hearing nothing in Myrtle Beach, SC. -KR4WM

KR4WM:

If we could predict where the winds in the jet stream would blow two weeks from now, it would be great. Unfortunately, we have only 48 hours to see if we have a legit chance at making it. In those 48 hours we try to let as many people know as possible. :)

The biggest factor in our attempts is whether or not the winds will cooperate. The window of opportunity is roughly 48 hours out, and even then it's not a guarantee.

Thanks for listening. We are looking to make one more attempt before the season is over.

[K4HSM]

The Spirit of Knoxville has declared that the SNOX IV amateur radio high-altitude balloon flight is now complete after shattering two world records and landing just shy of the European Continent in its attempt to be the first amateur payload to successfully cross the Atlantic Ocean.

Launched at 10:40 PM Eastern Time on Monday, March 10 (0240Z on 3/11) from Downtown Island Home Airport in Knoxville, Tennessee, SNOX IV traveled over 3360 miles (5310 km) and logged 40+ hours of continuous flight before dropping into the Atlantic Ocean around 1700Z on Wednesday.

The flight ended just after sunset local time as the payload approached Europe. It's last reported position placed it about 350 miles (563 km) southwest off the coast of Ireland.

Although the payload landed just shy of the UK, the mission is far from being considered unsuccessful. Utilizing a 900 cubic foot "Zero-Pressure" balloon designed by Mark Caviezel, NG0X, and a liquid ballast system designed by Carl Lyster, WA4ADG, the balloon was able to take maximum advantage of the jet stream's 100+ mph (160 kph) winds during the first 24 hours aloft. These two designs combined to keep the payload aloft for such a long duration as the temperatures at times dipped to as low as -50F (-45C).

The preliminary data is still being reviewed, but based on the information sent in from listeners and participants around the world, SNOX IV has set new records in both flight duration and distance traveled for Amateur Radio High-Altitude Ballooning, or ARHAB.

Based on the ARHAB records maintained by Ralph Wallio, W0RPK, SNOX IV shattered the 2-year old record of 1411.41 miles (2271.44km) set by Bill Brown, WB8ELK by more than double the distance. SNOX IV also bested the recent record of 32.26 hours set by Robert Rochte, KC8UCH on August 11, 2007 by about 8 hours.

Listeners from both sides of the pond and from around the world participated by tuning in to the CW beacon and RTTY telemetry on 30 meters. By downloading software provided by the Spirit of Knoxville team, known as the Distributed Tracking and Relay Client, or DTRC, hams and shortwave listeners were able to send their reports back to the SNOX team via the internet, which in turn updated the Spirit of Knoxville web site with real-time tracking of the balloon based on accumulated reports.

At several points in the first 24 hours, demand on the SNOX IV live status page was so high that the page had to be re-worked to a text-based version in order to support the demand.

Even though the balloon set records and nearly made it across, the Spirit of Knoxville team is not going to stop trying to complete the mission they set out to accomplish along with other ARHAB groups in North America. Planning is already underway to get SNOX V off the ground to finish what SNOX IV started.

Everyone is invited to attend a live press conference via the web and the SNOX team will field questions from participants. The chat conference is scheduled for 9AM Eastern Time (1300Z) on Saturday, March 22nd. Please visit http://www.spiritofknoxville.com for more information.

Web Site: http://www.spiritofknoxville.com
Report Submission: http://www.utarc.org
Video of launch: http://www.viddler.com/spiritofknox/videos/5/
Video of DTRC and balloon's transmission (courtesy John, M0UKD): http://www.m0ukd.com/video/SNOX_IV_M0UKD.wmv
Ralph Wallio's ARHAB record page: http://showcase.netins.net/web/wallio/ARHABrecords.htm
Spirit of Knoxville Media Package: http://www.spiritofknoxville.com/SpiritofKnoxvilleMediaPacket.pdf
Email: contact@spiritofknoxville.com

[kr4wm]

Thanks for the opportunity to watch your successful balloon launch progress via your website! Congratulations! I hope to be able to listen for and copy the next mission. If there is an e-mail notification list for your launches, I'd sure like to get on it. 73, -KR4WM

[K4HSM]

Thanks for the opportunity to watch your successful balloon launch progress via your website! Congratulations! I hope to be able to listen for and copy the next mission. If there is an e-mail notification list for your launches, I'd sure like to get on it. 73, -KR4WM

If you go to www.spiritofknoxville.com, click on the "Sign up for alerts" link at the top of the page, lower left of balloon image.

You can get updates as the mission progresses, change in altitude, speed, temperature, etc.

Join in the fun. :cool: