Atlantic Crossing By Amateur Radio High Altitude Balloon

First time submitter StatureOfLiberty writes "The California Near Space Project launched a high altitude weather balloon from San Jose, California 4:00 PM local time Sunday afternoon (Dec 11). Over the past 3 days it managed to cross the United States and then the Atlantic Ocean. The balloon passed the coastline of Spain about 12:40 AM (US Eastern Standard Time) Wednesday morning (Dec 14). It has since popped and landed in the Mediterranean Sea. This is a huge accomplishment. The previous distance record was about 3,300 miles. This one traveled about 6,200 miles. Enthusiasts tracked the balloon via the web throughout most of the trip thanks to a ham radio technology called APRS which received data transmitted by the balloon and logged it to databases on the internet. Thanks to APRS stations around the world (some of whom changed their normal listening frequencies to help with the tracking process) data was available for most of the flight."

Comments

Next stop, manned balloon flight!

[sandytaru]

Oh, wait.

At least three days is a lot faster than eighty days.

wikipedia's got the wrong name

[X0563511]

APRS is "Automatic Position Reporting System" per the creator. Wikipedia has the name wrong.

Why yes, I am a HAM. I hold a General ticket.

Re:wikipedia's got the wrong name

[Anonymous Coward]

That's weird. When I was studying for my general class, I was told that the P did stand for packet, and the claimed source was also the creator. That makes more sense if you think about it. While APRS is used for position data by most people, it's designed to handle allot more.

From Wikipedia: APRS (Automatic Packet Reporting System) is a digital communications protocol for exchanging information between a large number of stations covering a large (local) area.

While the article acknowledges the use of the system for location sharing, it makes it clear that isn't the sole propose of the system.

Re:wikipedia's got the wrong name

[jdagius]

> Wikipedia has the name wrong.

No, you are wrong. Bob Bruinga, WB4APR, the inventor of APRS has reverted in the naming convention, and now supports the "_packet_ reporting" moniker because he wants to emphasize that APRS is not just for position reporting. For example, it's extensively used for weather reporting from mostly non-mobile CWOP (Citizen Weather Observers Program) volunteers, who include a lot of non-amateur radio enthusiasts who augment NWS mesolevel forecasts with thousands of home-made stations reporting every ten minutes or so over the Internet. (The ham-radio CWOP volunteers can also report weather via amateur RF frequencies).

Also APRS has been used ("firenet") for reporting brush and forest fires.
http://wa8lmf.net/aprs/get_nws_shapefiles.htm

Upcoming launches

[vlm]

Upcoming launches at

http://www.arhab.org/ARHABlaunchannouncements.html

Also note that solely transmitting APRS is not the only thing ever done by balloons. Voice repeaters are very popular. TV transmissions both NTSC and slowscan are popular. Simple beacons in multiple frequency bands are popular. Digital telemetry, such as temp / pressure / humidity is sometimes done.

big achievement for a latex balloon

[k6mfw]

UV is the showstopper as it is very intense above 100K, it was not expected to last more than a few hours in sunlight. They launched it (along with three others) late Sunday afternoon so most of eastward travel is done at night and figured the sun UV will deteriorate the latex following morning causing balloon to pop and land. Objective of two balloons (K6RPT-11 and -12) is distance. These were planned to be floaters (buoyant at 120K or so) but expect to only make it partway across the US, K6RPT-12 popped and landed in Indiana (some hams have tracked it down and will recover). But....... K6RPT-11 kept going throughout the day then crossed the coastline the next night and contact was lost over Atlantic. Then it was picked up the next morning from Azores, now hams on other side of pond got active on tracking this thing. It kept going, survived two days of UV but looks like it didn't survive the UV the third day.

There's ongoing discussion on QRZ (one claimed all kinds of laws were broken), http://forums.qrz.com/showthread.php?324759-Amateur-Radio-Balloon-crosses-the-Atlantic

You all has gots to admit this is one for the books!!!!!!!!!

Other two balloons K6RPT-12 and -13 were going for altitude record (CNSP achieved a record of 136,545 ft in Oct). These came down in west Nevada close to that shaded area of restricted airspace that has Tonopah Test Range and Groom Lake. Payload of K6RPT-13 is same as the record altitude setter from October and has signatures of CNSP members, I think they should have kept it and enshrined in a plexiglass pyramid. But I guess if it gets lost then may as well lose it in Area 51.