PARACHUTE MOBILE jumps at Radiofest 2011 Feb 26.

[AF6IM]

Michael Gregg KF6WRW (Jumper 2 and Mark Meltzer AF6IM (Jumper 1) will be jumping on Feb 26 Saturday afternoon over Radiofest 2011 in Marina CA. Radiofest is the ARRL Santa Clara Valley Section Convention. It's a fun event and features a delicious onsite Italian dinner on Saturday evening.

See our Pacifcon 2010 jumps: http://http://sites.google.com/site/boeing377/parachute-mobile-pacificon-2010-jumps

Radiofest 2011 plans include working hams on 146.46 FM simplex and using APRS for telemetry of GPS info, heart rate and blood oxygen levels. We will be jumping from 14,000 to 18,000 feet, conditions permitting, which should allow us to work stations within a roughly 80-100 mile radius. The Radiofest site isnt suitable for landing parachutes so we will be landing at the DZ at the Old Fort Ord Army Airfield now called Marina Municpal Airport, the home of Skydive Monterey Bay. We also plan to have jumper carrried live ATV with the video displayed in real time at the Radiofest convention. We will have special event QSL cards. All you need is a two meter radio on 146.46 simplex (no offset, no tone) to work us.

If you are too far away to work us you can track our junps on APRS using
http://aprs.fi/ Look over the Marina CA airport http://aprs.fi/?addr=marina%20CA%20a...timerange=3600 or search by our callsigns. You will see altitude, speed, position, heart rate and blood oxygen levels displayed.

Radiofest 2011 website: http://www.radiofest.org/

When the weather warms up we will be going even higher using oxygen gear. We will also be trying out PSK 31 on 20M later this season, initially in a beacon mode. Thanks to Mike Pechner NE6RD our Chief Engineer for getting our PSK 31 gear working and configured for skydiving and to Rob Fenn KC6TYD for working out how to safely contain and attach it and a deployable end fed dipole to our parachute rigs. HF Parachute Mobile QSOs are a long shot, but we will be trying for some later this year carrying Yaesu FT 817 QRP xcvrs.

PARACHUTE MOBILE PROJECT: in the air, on the air, taking ham radio to new heights.

[AF6IM]

Corrected link for Pacificon 2010 jumps:

http://sites.google.com/site/boeing3...con-2010-jumps

We've just learned that the Radiofest 2011 event has been cancelled. Stay tuned, we will make alternate plans for a Parachute Mobile vertical dxpedition and post them here. Likely location is Byron CA. Likely time is a Saturday in Feb or March 2011.

[KD6KXR]

Hi Mark!

I'm not too familiar with Mt Diablo State Park, but there must be some vista points up there with a good view of Byron. If my schedule permits, I want to get a backpack mobile station out there!

From my home station, I should be able to work you guys directly over Lick Observatory while you're at high altitude. Mt. Hamilton will block ground control's transmissions, but the APRS would make it easy to follow what's happening. I would suggest having someone send some message packets on APRS announcing projected jump times, and possibly other key timing events- that would help us folks out in other valleys!

73
KD6KXR
Morgan Hill, CA

Corrected link for Pacificon 2010 jumps:

http://sites.google.com/site/boeing3...con-2010-jumps

We've just learned that the Radiofest 2011 event has been cancelled. Stay tuned, we will make alternate plans for a Parachute Mobile vertical dxpedition and post them here. Likely location is Byron CA. Likely time is a Saturday in Feb or March 2011.

[K6MFW]

Yeow! Feb sure arrived fast, I haven't thought of these Parachute Mobile jumps lately.

I have a Videolynx Z70A amateur television (ATV) transmitter, it is about 100mW. I have spoke with these guys, I'll have to get it to Mike NE6RD so he can start integration. Use a small camera (obviously not interfere with the parachute rig), set the xmtr to 427.25MHz, and use a consumer TV set on CATV ch 58 so us chairborne people can watch the action. I also have a TV set with built in VCR (also runs on 12VDC) so we can record the ATV transmissions (and post to youtube!). Of course the video will not be HD and there may be excessive pan and tilt (I want our jumpers to fly safe, not setup pristine video shots).

From Radiofest last year,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dWimbrpGF14

Somewhat related as Mark AF6IM wants to do this jumping from where the airliners fly (30,000ft),
http://mfwright.com/30Kjumps.html

73 and BS! Michael K6MFW, D13106