Balloonatic crossing the UK

[PE2BZ]

Hi,

I have releases an 60 inch foil balloon, only reaching half the expected altitude, but crossing the UK and running out of receivers.

If anyone has some time and receiver to spare ?

Horus in V3 mode on 436.610 and 434.715 (regular 270 hz tone spacing) 

LoRa mode 2 on 432.662 MHz

APRS lora should switch to the 439.9125 MHz in some time.

Thanks,

Ben - PE2BZ

[Nick McCloud]

I'm just outside the horizon ring so worth a try, but nada.

If you can get BALLOONATIC-L to bear a little left, I may be able to pick that up ;-)

Is it taking a box of moral support to Kalaallit Nunaat?

[Nick McCloud]

I guess it's somewhere on the west side of mainland Scotland - in time for Burns Night.

What was the tracker?

[Ben Z en de rest]

DIY TBtracker on ESP32-s2 pico, ATGM336h, BMP280 sensor and 3 x Energizer AA which should run for 72 hours from launch start.

Op vr 23 jan 2026 om 16:10 schreef Nick McCloud <nick.at....@gmail.com>:

I guess it's somewhere on the west side of mainland Scotland - in time for Burns Night.

What was the tracker?

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[Patrick van Staveren]

Beautiful. With so many pretty, pre-assembled payloads these days I love to see a few wiggly wires like this Ben :)

Is that a repurposed TTGO plastic box I see?

Nice work

Patrick KD9PRC

Patrick "Trick" van Staveren
https://trick.vanstaveren.us/

On January 23, 2026, PE2BZ <hoofdei...@gmail.com> wrote:

DIY TBtracker on ESP32-s2 pico, ATGM336h, BMP280 sensor and 3 x Energizer AA which should run for 72 hours from launch start.

<image.png>

Op vr 23 jan 2026 om 16:10 schreef Nick McCloud <nick.at....@gmail.com>:

I guess it's somewhere on the west side of mainland Scotland - in time for Burns Night.

What was the tracker?

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To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/ukhas/eaf222e4-45ae-4692-9c0c-7a94209eebbdn%40googlegroups.com.

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[Nick McCloud]

On Friday, 23 January 2026 at 15:49:00 UTC Ben Z en de rest wrote:

DIY TBtracker on ESP32-s2 pico, ATGM336h, BMP280 sensor and 3 x Energizer AA which should run for 72 hours from launch start.

Nice. Is the dipole for the LoRa module - if so, how did you tune it? 

[PE2BZ]

Hi Nick,

the dipole is for the GPS module. Usually an 1/4 wave dipole does the trick but sometimes I want to keep the GPS antenna a bit more away from the tx antenna and that moment I choose for 47 mm wire dipoles and 47 mm lenth twisted to the gnd and antenna connectors. 

The TX antenna itself was 71.37 divided by 433.775 MHz , or 16,5 cm. I have one tracker ready where I used the same twist and dipole for the TX antenna too but that one is supposed to travel on solar energy, and I have to find the mounting point to keep that antenne vertical.