Impending launch near Amsterdam

[Nick McCloud]

A colleague is preparing for what we are calling a Micro-HAB launch at his school - not full size, not Pico - using a 50g Howyee and a full canister of party helium for which we have carefully calculated payload weights, ascent & descent rates so meeting compliance with the 2m's at burst rule. This provides a considerable degree of flexibility as release can occur as it suits, subject to not being an idiot with flight path & landing area.

The tracker will transmit old-style HabHub text LoRa and HorusBinary v2 - just location data, not at this weight, no images! He has receivers for both, including one in the retrieve vehicle, but the more listeners the better.

We're not expecting Steve's definition of HAB at all, think ~8,500m burst so only really going to be heard by those with big Yagis, SuperMoxons or live in the Netherlands.

Does anyone have the contact details of our Dutch HAB & Ham colleagues so I can give them heads up please?

Final details to follow on frequencies, likely dates etc

[Mark Jessop]

If you want tracking from Europe, they probably need to be transmitting on the 'standard' frequencies they use over there, e.g. 434.714 MHz. 

73

Mark VK5QI

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[Marcel Frans]

Many of us are listening on the default freqs 434.713 and 437.600

We also follow the messages in the ukhas group. When there is more info about date and time, we can act quickly and post messages on Facebook HAB-NL and Telegram/Whatsapp groups. Beware of launching near Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam 🤭

73

Marcel (PC4L)

Op ma 19 jan. 2026 21:41 schreef Mark Jessop <lennieth...@gmail.com>:

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/ukhas/CABD2Lt26sA6ET6gyfbBnTXNc0hZdg4n_ST8dphsArOuj4tSbug%40mail.gmail.com.

[Nick McCloud]

On Monday, 19 January 2026 at 21:07:56 UTC Marcel Frans wrote:

Many of us are listening on the default freqs 434.713 and 437.600

Default for which modulations or protocols? Or do you just hear a signal and take it from there?

We can set one to LoRa and one to HorusBinary if you have any preferences for which is which, please let me know.

 

We also follow the messages in the ukhas group. When there is more info about date and time, we can act quickly and post messages on Facebook HAB-NL and Telegram/Whatsapp groups.

Cool!

 

Beware of launching near Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam 🤭

How do you define "near"? Given that it took 20 minutes to taxi from landing to gate last time I was there, I'm surprised it's not gone for self-determination and become another country.

But for sure, thanks for the tip. ;-)

[Marcel Frans]

Op ma 19 jan. 2026 22:48 schreef Nick McCloud <nick.at....@gmail.com>:

On Monday, 19 January 2026 at 21:07:56 UTC Marcel Frans wrote:

Many of us are listening on the default freqs 434.713 and 437.600

Default for which modulations or protocols? Or do you just hear a signal and take it from there?

Lora mode 2 we normally have on 432.662. 

Horus v2/v3 on 434.713 and 437.600, but when there is someone (like the chase car) can plot the balloon on the map the freqs and mode will be visible for all. No worries for listeners 😁

We can set one to LoRa and one to HorusBinary if you have any preferences for which is which, please let me know.

 

We also follow the messages in the ukhas group. When there is more info about date and time, we can act quickly and post messages on Facebook HAB-NL and Telegram/Whatsapp groups.

Cool!

 

Beware of launching near Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam 🤭

How do you define "near"? Given that it took 20 minutes to taxi from landing to gate last time I was there, I'm surprised it's not gone for self-determination and become another country.

Near as in 5km 

But for sure, thanks for the tip. ;-)

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[Nick McCloud]

On Monday, 19 January 2026 at 23:28:33 UTC Marcel Frans wrote:

Op ma 19 jan. 2026 22:48 schreef Nick McCloud <nick>:

On Monday, 19 January 2026 at 21:07:56 UTC Marcel Frans wrote:

Many of us are listening on the default freqs 434.713 and 437.600

Default for which modulations or protocols? Or do you just hear a signal and take it from there?

Lora mode 2 we normally have on 432.662. 

Horus v2/v3 on 434.713 and 437.600,

I shall pass on the details - for clarity, as we are using Horus v3, I infer from your formatting that you mean v3 is on 437.600

 

but when there is someone (like the chase car) can plot the balloon on the map the freqs and mode will be visible for all.

Not chase car mode. Only if the mobile receiver is also providing location, which in this case it won't be because there were too many other things to get done. Future mobile receivers will have a GNSS on them to upload mobile location. Just not on this one.

But the college has both a HABBase & a Horus SDR receiver setup, so that will relay the info.

 

How do you define "near"? Given that it took 20 minutes to taxi from landing to gate last time I was there, I'm surprised it's not gone for self-determination and become another country.

Near as in 5km 

No worries, I was being a bit meta. As a licensed pilot I download the KML from the prediction to look at in Google Earth to see what airspace it will fly through, so I'm pretty good at avoiding the headlines - mostly.

For this message, "near Amsterdam" was relative to me (Bolton, England) and many other readers on this group (UK, Australia, etc) to narrow down the general area. Because "from Ichthus College, Veenendaal" would have no geographical context for most!

I'm told that they hope to launch tomorrow, Wednesday, 21st Jan at 10am. But I will confirm that later on this afternoon after they've cleared the checklist.

[Nick McCloud]

On Tuesday, 20 January 2026 at 12:27:32 UTC Nick McCloud wrote:

Lora mode 2 we normally have on 432.662. 

Horus v2/v3 on 434.713 and 437.600,

I shall pass on the details - for clarity, as we are using Horus v3, I infer from your formatting that you mean v3 is on 437.600

The dual frequency sending option is still in the code base if you want v3 sent alternately on these two.

 

[Mark Jessop]

Send v3 alternately on both frequencies for highest likelihood of reception, though I think most receivers in the Netherlands will be on 434.713 MHz (or maybe 434.714 MHz, thats what I usually see in the receiver station info).

Make sure your receiver software is updated for Horus v3 reception! That's now been properly released as v0.6.0 - https://github.com/projecthorus/horusdemodlib/releases/tag/v0.6.0

73

Mark

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[Nick McCloud]

On Tuesday, 20 January 2026 at 14:03:48 UTC Mark Jessop wrote:

Send v3 alternately on both frequencies for highest likelihood of reception, though I think most receivers in the Netherlands will be on 434.713 MHz (or maybe 434.714 MHz, thats what I usually see in the receiver station info).

Ha! Perhaps someone from the Dutch community could comment!

 

Make sure your receiver software is updated for Horus v3 reception! That's now been properly released as v0.6.0 -

"Properly" released? What was it before, beta?

I'll see if my remote control launcher puppet can cope with an update! Normally we'd have frozen everything by now!

[Nick McCloud]

I got confused. v1/v2 ≠ v/2/v3

We are using v2.

[Mark Jessop]

So Horus v3 is a newly released improvement to the Horus Binary modes. The main changes are a far more flexible packet format, and no need to request payload IDs. 

There's an excellent writeup on how and why we ended up with this packet format here: https://sprocketfox.io/xssfox/2026/01/19/horusv3/

I'd highly recommend moving to this mode for your school-friendly package - arbitrary callsigns can be used (within some length and character restrictions), there's heaps of receiving stations that already exist, and custom sensor data can be added to the downlink and automatically decoded on the ground.

73

Mark VK5QI

On Wed, Jan 21, 2026 at 1:40 AM Nick McCloud <nick.at....@gmail.com> wrote:

I got confused. v1/v2 ≠ v/2/v3

We are using v2.

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[Nick McCloud]

On Tuesday, 20 January 2026 at 21:53:58 UTC Mark Jessop wrote:

 

There's an excellent writeup on how and why we ended up with this packet format here: https://sprocketfox.io/xssfox/2026/01/19/horusv3/

I posted this link to the group yesterday ...

 

I'd highly recommend moving to this mode for your school-friendly package - arbitrary callsigns can be used (within some length and character restrictions), there's heaps of receiving stations that already exist, and custom sensor data can be added to the downlink and automatically decoded on the ground.

Already embedded in to the project plan, once we get past a couple of 50g balloon launches, we can tidy up a few loose ends in the general objectives and indicative costs and throw it out in to the wild for feedback & contributions.