[KLQRP] QRPp balloon beacon heading your way!

[Bob Applegate]

I came down to the shack around 0045 here in NJ, but I can't
hear anything over the colorbust.  The horizontal beam isn't
helping any.

Oh well.

Bob - K2UT

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Pierre Thomson" <PierreThomson at Mailstack.com>
To: <klqrp at knightlites.org>
Sent: Tuesday, April 17, 2007 23:58 PM
Subject: RE: [KLQRP] QRPp balloon beacon heading your way!


> Hello all,
>
> The balloon beacon is being heard right now near Wilkesboro, NC.  That's a 
> bit west of the Raleigh/Durham area, but give it a shot!  It sends a CW 
> telemetry string every 2 minutes, with "dits" every 4 seconds in between. 
> It's on about 28635.5 KHz; you'll probably hear steady carriers on 28636 
> from harmonics of TV colorburst oscillators (nearby TV's, VCR's and some 
> PC hardware) but the beacon should stick out like a sore thumb.  The 
> balloon antenna is vertically polarized, so even a wire dipole hanging 
> vertical will hear it better than a beam.
>
> Happy hunting!
> de Sir Pierre KA2QPG
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Pierre Thomson
> Sent: Tuesday, April 17, 2007 9:47 AM
> Subject: [KLQRP] QRPp balloon beacon heading your way!
>
>
> Greetings fellow Knights,
>
> This is Sir Pierre Up North, KA2QPG.  I used to check in to the 80m net
> a few years back, but my current living situation doesn't allow for a
> decent 80m antenna.
>
> Robert Rochte KC8UCH just launched a superpressure balloon from Detroit,
> MI carrying a 50 mW CW beacon on 28.635 MHz.  The flight should pass over
> central NC around 8:00 pm EDT (0000Z) and head out over the Atlantic a
> couple hours after that.
>
> Since 10m skip is pretty much nonexistent, we are counting on hams in
> radio range (~100 miles) of the balloon to copy CW transmissions and
> email data points back to us.  Each transmission is about a minute long
> at 15 wpm and sends mission time, pressure, temperature, light level and
> battery voltage.  An email address is included in the message, which is
> pt at rifton.com .
>
> Any reports will be most appreciated.
>
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