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Build Your Own Weather Balloon
Leeji writes "Here is an interesting read about one geek's project to build and launch a weather balloon. The flight recorder is a small $200 Soekris Engineering computer running Bering Linux. It also uses a Garmin GPS, HAM packet radio, an automated Aiptek Pencam Trio digital camera, army surplus batteries, and lots of geek duct tape."
This is a dupe of the creators original post http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=03/01/1 5/1829244&mode=thread
just the website is on a different server (tho the original one exists)
I have one and it eats power as if it were popcorn, as it keeps it's CCD in an "always on" state so it can respond instantly to requests for picture takage.
One enhancement I would suggest would be to modify the camera in some way so that its power drain was less, even if only for the engineering challenge (he hooked it up to some great big huge massive LiIon cells that would keep a cyclotron going for a while)...
-Mark
The radio hams have been doing high-altitude ballooning for years. The original poster will probably be quite interested in the site that maintains the unofficial records. Perhaps the most active organization in the area is Edge of Space Sciences, which has conducted 63 amateur balloon flights to date, and knows well how to grease the skids with the FAA.
Ham radio geeks have been launching baloons [and rockets] with smart payloads for years. Launching is the easy part. Tracking it down and recovering it is the hard part.
Actually, :)
:) I'm considering this radar as it's the
Doppler weather radar works for wind speed and
direction pretty much always because there is
always enough reflective material in the air no
matter how much water vapor is present. It works
across a "volume coverage pattern" that is made up
of many "cones" made through repeated 360 degree
scans at varying angles. This is how you can nail
with extreme accuracy what distance and height
air is moving at what speed and direction.
Granted, I'm basing this on real world experience
as a certified Unit Control Position administrator
on the WSR-88D NexRAD doppler weather radar for
3 years.
one that is in place at most official reporting
stations. The military loves the thing.
You were close though.
The most important thing any republican needs to know.
Amateur ballooning can be quite a bit of fun. There is a small but active ballooning sub-hobby within the ham radio hobby. Ham radio is an ideal medium for transmitting telemetry from balloons, since we have access to cheap high quality (and high power) equipment.
:o It was still cool IMHO. Check out this kick ass map of the balloon's track.
:/ At last check, it was at 00.000N 000.00W. They didn't launch any more balloons that day.
I participated in a balloon tracking experiment not too long ago. The students of Timberlane Regional High School of Plaistow NH launched several high-altitude balloons carrying APRS transmitters, as a part of their CAPSAT (Coordinated Algebra (II) & Physics Simulated Satellite) project. I was able to track two of them. The balloons carried GPS receivers and ham radio Automatic Position Reporting System transmitters.
The launch was from Hopkinton NH. The first launch went well, and we received good signals from the balloon all the way out into the Atlantic ocean. This was quite a bit farther than they expected the baloon to travel, they had planned on recovering and reusing it
The second launch was also a success, and the baloon only traveled about 50 miles before touchdown. Map is here.
The third launch went up with the GPS receiver turned off
My tracking station consisted of a Kenwood TH-D7 radio and a PowerMac 7500 604e-180 running XASTIR on Yellow Dog Linux. The full results of the day (and APRS logs for the entire hamfest) are here.
-73, de n1ywb
www.n1ywb.com
Two versions:
http://www.arrl.org/whyham.html
http://members.aol.com/wd1j/wd1jpage2.htm