BH4 Launch: Sat 20/2/10 at 15:00UTC

[James Coxon]

Dear All,
Time to try again, planning to launch BallastHalo 4 this weekend -
launch will be from Churchill rather then EARS this time which will
give us better cover for filling the balloon.

So the info again:

Launch Date: 20/2/10
Launch Time: 15:00UTC
Launch Site: Churchill College, Cambridge, UK

Main Tx: RTTY on 434.073Mhz, 50baud, 350 shift, ASCII-8, 1.5 stop, no parity
Secondary Tx: CW on 434.070Mhz

Flight profile: aim to achieve float above 22km altitude, float for
some time and drop ballast to test the ballast tanks.

Flight path: http://bit.ly/abRWMQ (different paths at different heights)

Flight Tracking: http://spacenear.us/tracker/
Chat: #highaltitude on irc.freenode.net
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/jamescoxon/

To provide data please use dl-fldigi which will decode and upload the
data straight to the server - select the payload "Atlas"

For more info: http://www.pegasushabproject.org.uk/wiki/doku.php/missions:ballasthalo:ballasthalo4

Thanks for helping!

James
M6JCX

[James Coxon]

Hey all,
Its come back online! Its descending very slowly towards holland -
current landing predictions say it'll make land - desperately
searching for people to decode the telem before it comes down.

http://spacenear.us/tracker/

James

[wb8...@aol.com]

James and all,

 

  I just now listened for your payload via an Internet radio in the Netherlands but you are probably on the ground by now. For future reference, you can try tuning in via:  www.globaltuners.com  just sign up for a free account, but you may have to wait a bit before you can tune any of the radios since they are shared by other members on that site....the best way is to ask if you can tune in the chat window. There are two radios online now in the Netherlands and quite a number in Germany and the UK

 

  Although these radios typically just have an omni receive antenna, they may come in handy to fill in the gaps for a long duration mission.

 

- Bill WB8ELK

www.wb8elk.com

 

>
> Thanks for helping!
>
>
> James
> M6JCX
>

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[James Coxon]

Dear all,
BH4 has been recovered! More details to follow but many thanks to
everyone who has helped out, those who helped out with the launch,
helped track it especially those who did some clever long range
triangulations while the GPS was dead and then the Dutch Amateur Radio
Operators who managed to get the last few lines of telemetry and then
find the payload today - special thanks to PD7N for coordinating the
reception of telemetry and PD3EM for recovering the payload.

The flight was a partial success, while the GPS lost lock for a
considerable part of the flight we have narrowed this down to
interference by the pump - something to test on the desk to really
solve it. When the gps came back online after the pump had run out of
batteries the flight computer was able to count up the number of turns
by the pump - it had pumped out over 4500mls of ballast (it would have
pumped out the 500mls in the tank and then carried on pumping air -
the lack of a lock meant that it did not know when to stop.) The loss
of lock showed some gaps in the code that will need to be fixed.
The flight path suggests that the balloon did not get very high and
instead began to descend with the balloon intact - most likely we had
a leak in the vent which meant that we vented too much helium - a bit
of hot glue next time to seal the tube would be the solution to this.

So whats next? They'll be a break unfortunately - I've got to do some
revision for my finals! But of course they'll be a number of launches
by different groups in the UK though these probably won't be planned
to leave the UK, feel free to join the UKHAS mailing list for more
information (http://groups.google.com/group/ukhas?lnk=) or dwell on
#highaltitude on irc.freenode.net. As we didn't exactly complete the
mission aims for BH4 there will certainly be a BH5 - updated to avoid
the problems we experienced with BH4 - she'll fly soon i promise!

Thank again to everyone,
James
M6JCX

http://www.pegasushabproject.org.uk

[Mark Caviezel]

Sounds like an excellent effort!   Congrats to all involved!

- Mark Caviezel

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Re: BH4 Launch: Sat 20/2/10 at 15:00UTC

From: James Coxon <jac...@googlemail.com>
Date: Tue, February 23, 2010 10:23 am
To: uk...@googlegroups.com, ukhas-...@googlegroups.com,
atlant...@googlegroups.com, pa...@fairdene.demon.co.uk,
m5...@yahoo.co.uk, Sylvie <f1...@wanadoo.fr>, "jean-pierre.taconne"
<f1...@orange.fr>, verbrugge <f6...@free.fr>, Noel Matthews
<no...@noelandsally.net>, Iain.J...@diamond.ac.uk, Graham Shirville
<Graham.S...@allgood.co.uk>, g4bao <jo...@g4bao.com>, "L.Aubarbier"
<barb...@free.fr>, jacquesmotte <jacque...@wanadoo.fr>, David
PRIJAC <prijac...@orange.fr>, Robert Chipperfield
<rob...@syxis.co.uk>, F8...@aol.com, Claude RIVAS <f4...@yahoo.fr>