Amateur Radio Balloon Transcontinental and Transatlantic Attempt in Progress

Here's the track on aprs.fi along with last year's record-breaking K6RPT-11 balloon. Time is set to max (7 days) so the full track for both can be seen.

http://aprs.fi/#!call=a/K6RPT-11,a/K6RPT-12&timerange=604800

As of this moment it's been a bit over 2 hours since it went out of range of VO1BIL. The -11 balloon went out of range of the east coast at 01:42 my time according to the aprs.fi plot and reappeared in the Azores at 12:08ish. K6RPT-12 has had about 6 more hours of time on the NA digis/gates due to its more northerly track, so anywhere from 0830-0900Z onwards it might be worth watching aprs.fi

 

No breaking news, but I did receive a packet from K6RPT-12 yesterday, around 4:50 pm, in my car, on a quarter wave window vertical!

Its position was abt 500 kms south, close to Mount Washington NH. Very interesting.

 

I did see someone ask "what is the point of all these APRS balloons?" The thing is designs need to be adapted and developed especially as electronics and cold temperatures don't go together.

In the UK we are allowed to put High Altitude Balloons up but we can't/not allowed use Amateur Radio to track them. So its very much 2 hour flights with GPS tracking and reporting courtesy of iphone.

Last year the SentIntoSpace.com team made a capsule out of a polystyrene box, they have developed that and have looked at casings made out of plastic and fibreglass materials and are looking to sell them commercially.

The issues for HAAPRS balloons is they need to be developed, no point sending last years design up again. Anyone can send up a polystyrene box, it needs to move on and the next challenge is to produce a capsule that protects the electronics from cold so there is no equipment failures.

Transcontinental has been cracked but Transatlantic flights are going to be more miss than hit. 2m APRS is no use in the dead zone so someone needs to find an alternative whether that be a low powered HF CW beacon and a way to report it.

Also the issue of power Amateur radio ballooning doesn't require the gadgets that iphone balloons use like cameras, but would small solar cells attached to the capsule help to keep everything powered up on a long flight?

Looking at last nights track I'm wondering if the balloon has veered south before continuing eastwards missing the Azores in which case it could be over North Africa, or has it turned north east and is somewhere in the south western approaches. If had gone over the Azores wouldn't it have been heard by now?

 

http://www.stormsurfing.com/cgi/display_alt.cgi?a=natla_250

 

What a pity, but I know that through northern Spain read this forum:
http://aprs.fi/info/a/EB1DPB

 

There is 30 m APRS...fraught with all the problems of HF packet, but it's there nonetheless.

 

they are now saying it should make Europe by 19.00 UTC or Africa (only APRS near are on the Canaries, but its strange the Azores haven't heard a peep from it).

 

Nothing yet in IO53 County Mayo Western Ireland. I listen on 144.390 MHz since 1300z....
73 de M/ei3gyb

 

Any word or reports on the balloon? Hope it makes it to land although it looks like it has not reported since I checked on it yesterday.

 

Has made it to Europe
Peter (VK5KX)

 

Very cool. Nice to see it is still airborne.

 

Do balloon-launchers have to worry about notifying potential Countries of it's arrival? I imagine rocket-launchers zipping by as it coasts over Libya...

 

Well good way to bankrupt a country's rocket budget compared to cost of a balloon and radio. However, it is interesting and I wonder if this will raise attention in the State Dept. Imagine amount of visits to CNSP website and my youtube video (it might get more views than a Jeri Ellsworth video).

 

+1 view from me with yours over Jeri Ellsworth. Don't know JE and never saw a video.

 

Dang, here I am at midnight pacific time watching this thing drift across Morocco, this is so cool to actually track something I personally saw and video last Sunday. I notice no igate stations in this country or in Algeria. What would be real cool is if balloon vectors north and comes down in Italy in Gina Lollobrigida's estate near Rome. She is also a professional photog that can get some good pictures.

For those unaware, Morocco had one of the Shuttle's TAL landing sites.