Amateur Radio balloon starts record breaking flight

Well, if you look straight up on the map from Winnie Texas you'll notice 'China Texas'
They just over shot and missed a bit.

I noticed this before the balloon went silent and thought it was hilarious. So.... No haters PLS
I'm disappointed that it's missing, I had dedicated a monitor to it too.

 

Looks like the cold is getting to the payload.

 

Thank you for posting the event on qrz.com and thank you for the balloon attempt. Can you show us more technical details on the balloon and payload? I am curious how you all were keeping the balloon from going too high and popping. 73's Tom KA8HUZ

 

I feel like a kid watching the Apollo 13 tragedy while looking for my cat that disappeared 3 months ago.

I can only wonder what the 'team' is doing, thinking.

 

Thank you for posting this so that we could follow the project. It's is a shame indeed that there was this -unknown- failure, but it is a worthy effort of experimentation. The only ones who never fail are those who do nothing.

73 de Ray ..._ ._

 

Now that is funny!

 

The answer is - more styrofoam.

K2WH

 

Actually it crashed into Whitney Houston's house yesterday.

 

"It appears that the GPS gave up."

Was probably made in China. Mission profile will be updated to include "return defective GPS for waranty replacement".

 

This is what innovation is all about: it starts with wanting to solve a problem as a person or a team, goes thru failure stages, and then takes a path throttled by the Sirens of Titan. Take it from one who knows--check my bio.

DON'T GIVE UP GUYS! TRY AGAIN!

Before we continue to diss this team, I want the ridiculers to ask--could this have gone the other way: from PRC China to TEXAS?

The answer is **no way**. Innovation doesn't flourish in a closed society where dishonor, fear and shame dominate as (negative) reinforcers. This is not an ethnicity issue; its a PHILOSOPHY issue. That's why PRC China is the champion of imitation and NOT innovation.

Tinker, play, do. DO.

73,
Chip W1YW

 

I'll volunteer to step in on this one...

Its PARTICIPATORY;

ITS IMMERSIVE;

ITS EDUCATIONAL IN REAL ENGINEERING;

IT BUILDS A POOL OF THOSE SKILLED IN THE (RADIO) ART;

ITS EDUCATIONAL IN RISK MANAGEMENT;

Its FUN d*mmit!

That float yer boat OM?

73,
Chip W1YW

 

So, how bout them RedSox!

 

Precisely who among us gets to define what amateur radio is? Why is your favorite activity, or my favorite activity, more important or appropriate than the balloon experiment?

I wouldn't cross the street to participate in this, but I certainly wouldn't knock them for trying this; nor would I knock you for enjoying your favorite Amateur activity, even if it isn't my cup of tea.

Mike

 

I applaud them for their effort -- but I only wish they were able to recover the payload so they could do a post-mortem.

There are several issues at work here:

As the payload gets colder, moisture will condense on the electronics, causing issues or failure.

Batteries don't like the cold and the output will drop off quickly once you start getting down around +40 F or so.

Most GPS manufacturers don't follow the either / or rule for speed / altitude and they quit working above about 60,000 feet -- but they should start working again when they drop below this limit.