Amateur Radio Balloon Transcontinental and Transatlantic Attempt in Progress

[K6MFW]

California Near Space Project launched a high altitude amateur radio balloon (callsign K6RPT-12) late Sunday afternoon (Dec 2) from San Jose, CA. As of about Monday 1630Z (8:30 pm PST) it was flying over Chicago, IL about 110,000 feet moving at 200 mph. This flight by Ron Meadows and others of CNSP is another long distance floater.

Follow this flight at http://aprs.fi/#!mt=roadmap&z=11&cal...merange=604800

For more on CNSP, see http://www.californianearspaceproject.com/

[AG2AA]

they really really should not be using wide2 or any other digipeaters. from that altitude, it's a QRM factory with a wide2 path. just beaconing would be plenty. if the device is smart enough, have it use a wide path ONLY below 1000' if you would need APRS to find it once it lands.

California Near Space Project launched a high altitude amateur radio balloon (callsign K6RPT-12) late Sunday afternoon (Dec 2) from San Jose, CA. As of about Monday 1630Z (8:30 pm PST) it was flying over Chicago, IL about 110,000 feet moving at 200 mph. This flight by Ron Meadows and others of CNSP is another long distance floater.

Follow this flight at http://aprs.fi/#!mt=roadmap&z=11&cal...merange=604800

For more on CNSP, see http://www.californianearspaceproject.com/

[K6MFW]

video of fill and launch at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J5QUGMAgkVg

[VE6SRT]

Seems to be something wonky with the altitude readings as far as I can tell from the raw packets on aprs.fi. For some reason, occasionally the altitude is getting 3 zeroes tacked on to the front, pushing the 3 least significant digits out the other side. So A=111408 becomes A=000111 in the next packet.

Aaaaand it's now in Canadian airspace over Sarnia.

[WB0OEW]

they really really should not be using wide2 or any other digipeaters. from that altitude, it's a QRM factory with a wide2 path. just beaconing would be plenty. if the device is smart enough, have it use a wide path ONLY below 1000' if you would need APRS to find it once it lands.

APRS newbie here so I'm likely way off the mark but I did a little googling and found these sites, both of which explicitly state that aircraft should use WIDE2:
http://www.vansairforce.com/communit...ad.php?t=45539
http://wa8lmf.net/DigiPaths/NNNN-Digi-Demo.htm

Would appreciate a little bit more explanation. Thanks.

73, Elwood, WB0OEW

[AG2AA]

from that altitude, a wide2-2 packet will hit easily dozens of digipeaters, which will then repeat the packet as wide2-1, and then easily dozens more digipeaters will repeat the packet AGAIN, probably to hundreds of igates. so whats the goal? to see the packets on the internet like APRS.FI, or to have the packet heard by every man, woman, and child with an APRS receiver on the continent? just a plain beacon from 50Kfeet will hit several igates and map just fine on the internet without bouncing packets all over the continent.

[N0SSC]

Seems to be something wonky with the altitude readings as far as I can tell from the raw packets on aprs.fi. For some reason, occasionally the altitude is getting 3 zeroes tacked on to the front, pushing the 3 least significant digits out the other side. So A=111408 becomes A=000111 in the next packet.

Aaaaand it's now in Canadian airspace over Sarnia.

Their twitter feed mentioned that the low temperature is messing with the GPS. Based on that, it's unusual that it's doing it now, in full daylight.

[N0SSC]

It's only operating in Wide2-1, but I agree it shouldn't be using digipeaters above a certain altitude. It's a big-red-bee, so it doesn't have the functionality to do such things. it's not aggressively congesting the network (although it doesn't need to beacon every minute whilst cruising) and it's important for the last few packets to get through the network to pinpoint its crash location.

[K5CO]

It's only operating in Wide2-1, but I agree it shouldn't be using digipeaters above a certain altitude. It's a big-red-bee, so it doesn't have the functionality to do such things. it's not aggressively congesting the network (although it doesn't need to beacon every minute whilst cruising) and it's important for the last few packets to get through the network to pinpoint its crash location.

HAD WE KNOWN IN TIME, WE COULD HAVE SENT UP AN INTERCEPTOR AND BROUGHT THAT BABY DOWN. Next time.
RC R K5CO, Corrales, New Mexico missle range.

[AG2AA]

it went right over my house. could have keyed up 1500W on the EME antenna and lit it up good :-)