Re: near-space ballooning

[Paul Hickey]

I am posting this to the group.

Are you gonna be at the meeting tonight Robert?

Paul

On Thu, Feb 3, 2011 at 6:21 AM, Paul Hickey <paulh...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Id love to do another launch and I have spoken with others who would like to
> also.
>
> I say lets get one going!
>
> Paul Hickey
>
> sent from my Android phone
>
> On Feb 3, 2011 12:19 AM, "Robert Stucke" <rst...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> I wasn't sure from the wiki if you had another launch coming up or not,
>> but
>> I'd love to participate. I've launched three balloons around Arizona in
>> the
>> past few years (all successfully retrieved) and have some extra things I
>> could contribute to your effort. I have two extra 1200gram balloons, a 42"
>> rocket parachute, and a TinyTracker with GPS.
>>
>> Check out the pics from my previous launches. http://rot26.net
>

[Nathanael Phillips]

Heck yeah! I was thinking about this last night. We need to get the band back together.

[Rick Osgood]

You totally should.  A few weeks after I started working here a coworker asked me if I wanted to work on one.  Now it's cold.  I've been hoping that we could get a balloon going here by June but I'm not sure at this point.  It'd be way cool if we could get our balloons synchronized and communicating somehow, but I'm not sure that would be possible.  We are about 1,000 miles apart and I think the radio horizon up at 90K feet is only about 400 miles.  Combined that's only about 800 miles.  I wonder if anyone else has done that yet?

[Will Bradley]

Launch rockets at 90k feet? ;)

[Nathanael Phillips]

It would be fun to have some sort of "packet war" between the balloons. But like you said, the distance might be too great. 

I wonder if we could turn it into some sort of HAM community game? Get the word out that our balloons are going up at the same time, and have HAMs across the southwest ping our balloons. The team with the most logged "hits" wins. Instead of camera mass, we add radio mass :)

[John Kittelsrud]

Simple, use EME as a relay. I'd say that would be a first.

-John K.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
www.teamdroid.com
My photos: pics.teamdroid.com

[Nathanael Phillips]

I'm a novice in all sense of the word, but wouldn't a balloon be too unstable to maintain an EME link? 

[Jerry Gable]

Depauw (BASE) and Taylor universities use the 1W 900Mhz Digi International radios and have used them to set up a mesh network between them.

At one point I wanted to set up an experiment with trying to relay a message as far as possible but couldn't find anyone else interested.

Another fun experiment would for distance with a zero pressure balloon.  There is a hackerspace back east that is going to try a trans Atlantic flight.  New York to Ireland I think is the current amateur record.

[John Kittelsrud]

And there's the challenge! :-P
Just kidding, in all actuality the chance of pulling off something
like that would be infinitesimal. You might be able to do a packet
contact with an orbiting HAM satellite and make contact with the other
balloon that way. There would have to be a clever rig to stabilize and
point the antenna though. Would not mind flying a gyro stabilized
camera mount that could do smooth pans of the horizon.

-John K.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
www.teamdroid.com
My photos: pics.teamdroid.com

[Tim]

Speaking of HAM satellites, we are about to release another one from
ISS,

http://www.arissat1.org/

it just arrived to ISS, and will be 'kicked' out the door February
16th. Most of the electronics were designed and built a few miles west
of HSL.

On Feb 3, 7:04 pm, John Kittelsrud <john...@gmail.com> wrote:
> And there's the challenge! :-P
> Just kidding, in all actuality the chance of pulling off something
> like that would be infinitesimal. You might be able to do a packet
> contact with an orbiting HAM satellite and make contact with the other
> balloon that way. There would have to be a clever rig to stabilize and
> point the antenna though.  Would not mind flying a gyro stabilized
> camera mount that could do smooth pans of the horizon.
>
> -John K.
> -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=www.teamdroid.com
> My photos: pics.teamdroid.com
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> On Thu, Feb 3, 2011 at 6:31 PM, Nathanael Phillips <n...@coffeebot.net> wrote:
> > I'm a novice in all sense of the word, but wouldn't a balloon be too
> > unstable to maintain an EME link?
>

> > On Thu, Feb 3, 2011 at 6:25 PM, John Kittelsrud <john...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> >> Simple, use EME as a relay. I'd say that would be a first.
>
> >> -John K.
> >> -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
> >>www.teamdroid.com
> >> My photos: pics.teamdroid.com
>

> >> On Thu, Feb 3, 2011 at 5:26 PM, Nathanael Phillips <n...@coffeebot.net>

> >> >> On Thu, Feb 3, 2011 at 3:32 PM, Nathanael Phillips <n...@coffeebot.net>

> >> >> wrote:
>
> >> >>> Heck yeah! I was thinking about this last night. We need to get the
> >> >>> band
> >> >>> back together.
>

> >> >>> On Thu, Feb 3, 2011 at 9:37 AM, Paul Hickey <paulhic...@gmail.com>

> >> >>> wrote:
>
> >> >>>> I am posting this to the group.
>
> >> >>>> Are you gonna be at the meeting tonight Robert?
>
> >> >>>> Paul
>

> >> >>>> On Thu, Feb 3, 2011 at 6:21 AM, Paul Hickey <paulhic...@gmail.com>

> >> >>>> wrote:
> >> >>>> > Id love to do another launch and I have spoken with others who
> >> >>>> > would
> >> >>>> > like to
> >> >>>> > also.
>
> >> >>>> > I say lets get one going!
>
> >> >>>> > Paul Hickey
>
> >> >>>> > sent from my Android phone
>

[Will Bradley]

Coolest thing ever? Possibly. Any HAMs want to do something cool on that night?

[Jasper Nance]

I have a quagi that could use some love

Tim, what are the frequencies?

[Rick Osgood]

O cool it has SSTV on board.  I'll have to figure out how to demodulate that as I have never done it before.  I'm guessing I can probably do it using just a laptop and sound card.  This will be fun.

[Jasper Nance]

MMSSTV is the best, and its free

[Rick Osgood]

Thanks for the tip I will look into that.  Do you know if SSTV requires a radio with wide bandwidth?  I have tried to pick up NOAA weather images in the past but those images require wide bandwidth and most normal amateur radios do not support those bandwidths so that experiment didn't work out so well.  I'm trying to find what frequencies this thing is using and when they will be active.

[Jasper Nance]

Ok, my quagi is 70cm so it will work as an uplink.

If we broadcast at 50W on 2m we can just use a dipole at 45 degrees =D

[Jasper Nance]

Nope, its designed to fit over the normal 3khz BW.

Although, you COULD make it wider, noone does that =D

[Jasper Nance]

14.230Mhz and you can hear SSTV signals all day long if you have an HF
transceiver.

[Rick Osgood]

Found frequency info:

http://www.arissat1.org/v3/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=98&Itemid=132

[Rick Osgood]

That's cool Jasper I will have to tune into that later and see what I can pick up.  I've never messed with SSTV before.  I've been looking for more interesting HAM projects.  I get really board of just trying to make contacts.

[Tim]

Microchip will probably have a huge setup when EVA happens, I'll let
everyone know. I'll have to dig out some prototype hardware and bring
it by the lab one of these days.

[Tim]

Here is ARISSat-1 BandPlan: http://www.flickr.com/photos/valkyries1/5406273951/