WB6RER Pico Balloon update, launched May 19 2023. This coming May 19 it will have been flying around the world for 1 year. It has made more than 12 orbits around our planet. The balloon is equipped with a 20 meter QRPLABS WSPR tracker. A few months into the flight it seems the lower half of the 20m dipole antenna broke off (we think) and the transmitted WSPR signals became very weak and the number of spots was greatly reduced. The balloon originally settled in at a float altitude of 47,000 feet and stayed there for a few months, suddenly the spots became less frequent, and what telemetry we did get showed the balloon now at 50,000 feet. So we assume the loss of the lower half of the dipole made the system lighter which caused the balloon to rise in altitude. The power output is only 15 milliwatts so a antenna problem is not a good thing. Because of the weaker than usual signal it's spotting by earth stations has been very sporadic at best, but enough spots with telemetry have been coming occasionally for us to keep track of it. The balloon over the last eleven months has made its way into the southern hemisphere where there must be fewer WSPR spotting stations. It had not been spotted for over two months and we all thought it had finally come down. But on 4-20-2024 two stations in Australia VK5ARG and VK7JJ first started spotting it with complete reception of the telemetry, altitude, solar panel voltage and temperature. It is still at 50,000 feet give or take a couple hundred feet as the air pressure changes at altitude. So the last few days the balloon crossed over Australia and is now starting another trip across the Pacific Ocean heading due east toward South America, so we probably will not hear from it for a while. The balloon is a hydrogen filled 32" Yokohama brand clear sphere which are purchased from Japan. Again a special thanks goes to Craig KK7JDL for suppling the hydrogen and his expertise. This is a Hualapai Amateur Radio Club project. Kingman, Arizona
Wicked cool! Also, very delightful that it crossed over to the southern hemisphere. Shame about the wire/antenna. Congrats to your club for a very successful, if hard to track, project. Thanks for the launch photo!
