Amateur Radio Balloon crosses the Atlantic

Amateur Radio Balloon crosses the Atlantic

Yesterday evening an amateur radio APRS balloon, call sign K6RPT-11, succeeded in its crossing of the United States and the Atlantic ocean.

Launched from California, the balloon transmitted on the APRS frequency of 144.390 MHz FM that is used in the Americas.

It appears to have travelled south of Portugal across southern Spain and was heard by Sao Miguel CU2IE:

2011-12-13 19:42:30 UTC:
K6RPT-11>APBL10,WIDE2-1,qAR,CU2IE,PORTUGAL:!3553.73N/03247.24WO098/145/A=109951V200
CNSP-11

See the path of the balloon at http://aprs.fi/?call=k6rpt-11
In the “show-last” dialog box, enter 3 days to see its track all the way back to launch in California.

Amateur Radio Automatic Position Reporting System (APRS)
http://www.aprs.org/

From: http://www.southgatearc.org/news/december2011/amateur_radio_balloon_crosses_the_atlantic.htm






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The Balloon appears to have burst at 09:16z over the Mediterranean Sea. Quite an impressive run!

 

2011DEC14 0945UTC K6RPT-11 Balloon is over the Mediterranean Sea at this moment...
I am watching it on APRS now... its beacon is being received by EB6AOK on Ebiza.
Position currently is about 37°46'N 4°4'E.
It looks like it is slowing down and dropping fast, and it went from 100k ft altitude to 14k ft altitude in past half hour.
If it drops much lower, the VHF path may be lost to the Ibiza station... who knows if there are any other possible receivers nearby.

Update
2011 DEC 14 1000UTC - No reception for past 15 minutes.
Here was the latest position report:

37°45.69' N 4°21.09' E - locator JM27ES22ES
63.5 miles Northeast bearing 23° from Dellys, Boumerdes, Algeria
66.2 miles North bearing 10° from Boudjima, Algeria
83.8 miles Northeast bearing 35° from Boumerdas, Boumerdes, Algeria
100.2 miles Northeast bearing 46° from Algiers, Alger, Algeria
Last position: 2011-12-14 09:46:30 UTC (14m3s ago)
2011-12-14 10:46:30 CET local time at Dellys, Algeria
Altitude: 14558 ft
Course: 88°
Speed: 35 MPH
Device: BigRedBee: BeeLine GPS version 10 (tracker)
Last path: K6RPT-11>APBL10 via WIDE2-1,qAS,EB6AOK-3


Regards,
Bonnie

 

I met one of the first people to launch a balloon to the edge of space (amateur that is) and have it return pictures a year or so ago - what a nice fellow he was too. Made it seem simple - I'm sure its not that easy.

 

Too bad K6RPT is breaking so many of their licence terms doing this.

 

Can you expand on this for my education?

Thanks.

 

Who really gives a flip? I don't and doubt any who were involved do either. I think it's a great achievement.

Whether a rule is broken or not is inconsequential when it comes to achieving something great.

 

Rules are quite clearly defined and are there for a reason, if we all ignore the rules we don't like we'd have clowns playing music on HF bands and other nonsense claiming it was a "great achievement".

 

What rules were broken?

 

Agreed about the need to abide by the rules, but like Mark, K8MHZ asked, what rules were broken?

From what I had read, 144.390 is within the allowed spectrum of operation, but may reside outside of the respected band plan. If it's like the ones here in the US, band plans act as a respected guideline to operate, but not law.

It is the use of his FCC issued callsign being used in that region?

How does APRS operation aboard the ISS differ from this?

Just curious,
--jeff
N3QO

 

How so? If section 97.207 has been complied with it is legal

 

Really cool to have a project like this up and working! Lots of hard work I am sure. Keep up the good work.

 

I would not be concerned of law breaking (though I cannot figure what laws were broken except for certain countries that prohibit their citizens from owning transmitters). I would not worry about huge proliferation of global traveling balloons. First it is really hard to reach 100K, many hams are not going to risk cost of losing equipment, and they didn't expect it to travel this far!!! Latex breaks down from Sun's UV (it is very intense at altitude) which is why virtually all don't survive for more than a few hours. CNSP expected it to land in midwest like the other floater K6RPT-12.

But you all has gots to admit this flight is one for the books!!!!!!!!!!!! I'll get around to uploading some video of the fill and launch.

 

.............

 

I'm not advocating breaking rules, I'm not perfect and have broken my share. My point is why can't you see the achievement here? Seems your focus is on the small picture.