Author Archives: andy

PS-61 APRS/Olivia PICO balloon

PS-61 is planned for release at 7am Sun 21 Feb 2016 AEST.

Solar powered party balloon, 10mW TX.
APRS on 145.175Mhz
Olivia 8/250 with RSID on 434.649Mhz USB (Dial frequency)

Tracking as
PS-61 on SNUS
VK3YT-12 on APRS.FI

Prediction

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Update #1 29 Feb 2016

Actual path:
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Last packet was received at 08:24 22 Feb 2016 UTC before PS-61 headed out to sea.

PS-60 APRS/Olivia PICO balloon

PS-60 was released at 7am Sat 30 Jan 2016 AEST.

Solar powered party balloon, 10mW TX.
APRS on 145.175Mhz
Olivia 8/250 with RSID on 434.649Mhz USB (Dial frequency)

Tracking as
PS-60 on SNUS
VK3YT-11 on APRS.FI

Prediction

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Update #1 Tues 2 Feb 2016 8:4 AEST

PS-60 has finally headed East after spending more than 3 days circling VIC/SA/NSW

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Prediction:

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Thanks everyone for assistance with tracking, it was a great collective effort.

PS-58 HF PICO balloon WSPR JT9

PS-58 was released at 18:50 29 Dec 2015 UTC

Solar powered party balloon, 25mW TX
TX WSPR, JT9 on 30m only

Dial frequency 10.138700Mhz (standard WSPR dial frequency) for WSPR, JT9.
JT9 at 1700Hz offset.

See HF decoding info at http://picospace.net/?cat=34

Tracking as PS-58 on SNUS http://picospace.net/tracker/new
WSPR call sign is VK3ANH http://wsprnet.org/olddb?findcall=vk3anh

Prediction:

151612 trj001

TX scheduling
Minute – Band – Mode – Condition
:00 – 30m – 2 mins WSPR then two x 1 min JT9 – mandatory
:10 – 30m – 2 mins WSPR then two x 1 min JT9 – if batt full
:20 – 30m – 2 mins WSPR then two x 1 min JT9 – if batt full
:30 – 30m – 2 mins WSPR then two x 1 min JT9 – mandatory
:40 – 30m – 2 mins WSPR then two x 1 min JT9 – if batt full
:50 – 30m – 2 mins WSPR then two x 1 min JT9 – if batt full

Update #1 24 Jan 2016 AEST

PS-58 is still flying after close to 4 weeks in the air.

It crossed the equator a few days ago, flew over El Salvador and Honduras then Jamaica, and passed between Cuba and Haiti before safely navigated the Bermuda triangle.

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Prediction:

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Update #2 9 Feb 2016 AEST

PS-58 ended its trip over the Indian Ocean on the first day of Lunar New Year yesterday, after 5 week, 5 day, 5 hour and 25 minutes in the air, and 45,319km, 4110km from home.

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It has been an interesting trip, with the balloon moving over to the Northern Hemisphere, passing within 100km of Cuba, navigating Bermuda triangle, and made friend with many new balloon trackers from the Northern Hemisphere.

Thank you everyone for assistance with tracking, the additional coverage has made PS-58 the best tracked PS balloon so far!

See you next time!

PS-56 HF PICO balloon CW only no GPS

With all initial pre-launch testing looking perfectly normal, PS-56 was released at 7am on Sat 28 Nov 2015.

Shortly after launch it was obvious that something was wrong, there was no WSPR or JT9 data. The payload was continuously resetting itself every 8-10 minutes, sending the default Morse sequence of “VK3YT QF20bc 0000 XXXX” where XXXX is the battery voltage. It appeared that the GPS could not acquire lock at all.

Not giving up easily, the hardcore trackers from VK and ZL were getting prepared for the challenge of tracking a party balloon without GPS.

The payload provided a range of data directly and indirectly:
– Battery voltage
– Sunset
– Sunrise
– Bearing from receiving station.
– Relative signal strength from receiving stations.

Using the sun greyline at sunset and sunrise, antenna bearing and wind prediction, the position of the balloon could be estimated.

This is all the info sent from PS-56 when in sunlight, every 8-10 minutes:

Burst4

And this was what it sounded like:

VK3YT_CW1.mp3

PS-56 was tracked like this continuously for a week by Bob ZL1RS, before it got to South America. As expected, the balloon got out of range, and we thought it was the end of it. This was around 2nd December 2015.

On 13th December, Bob reported a possible sighting of PS-56 on the waterfall:

Possible ps56

It is the tiny spec of signal directly under the 1000 marker, above the second horizontal line from the bottom.

Bob further narrowed the position down to an area between South America and South Africa using his array of Beverage antennas:

Ps 56 map update

Many ham operators devoted their time and equipment to search for PS-56, with a number of unconfirmed reports.

Fast forward to Sat 19th December, when John VK2FAK and Joe VK5EI spotted PS-56 with strong signal strength at around 11:00 UTC The sunset time was around 11:44 UTC when the last transmission was heard:

ScreenHunter 15 Dec 19 22 45

On Sunday morning Bob ZL1RS was receiving the first wake up packets from PS-56 around 17:40UTC. The positions of the Beverage antenna, the sunset and sunrise time estimates the position of PS-56 to be around 55 degree South, and 150 degree East at the time.

This provides confirmation with a large degree of certainty that PS-56 has completed its first circumnavigation of the Southern Hemisphere, and still flying, all while being tracked without a working GPS!

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A huge thank-you to everyone for assistance with tracking of PS-56. Even if no signal was received, your participation helped to keep the spirit up through the trip.

Special thanks to Bob, John and Adrian for not giving up!

Update #1 20 Dec 2015

Sun greyline at sunset around 08:10 UTC 20 Dec 2015:

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And wind pattern around the area:

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Update #2 24 Dec 2015

PS-56 is still going East, and the signal is getting weaker with the distance. Estimated position at 1600 AEST 24 Dec 2015 is around (-60,-110) (Grey line at sunset)

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Update #3 28 Dec 2015 AEST

PS-56 is heard from again today, loud and clear from VK and ZL. From the antenna bearing and sunset grey line, it is estimated to be somewhere in the Great Australian Bight, South of VK5.

Sunset grey line at 10:30 UTC. The bearing is between 200 – 240 degrees from ZL1RS, which is at the Northern part of New Zealand.

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Update #4 29 Dec 2015 AEST

PS-56 woke up at around 17:48 28 Dec 2015 UTC, putting the likely sunrise time at its position to be around 16:48 UTC.

This is the sunrise greyline at 18:20 UTC

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The estimated night time at PS-56’s position is around 6 hours, which projects the latitude to be about -57 degrees.

PS-56 (-57,163):: Sunrise at 16:15:25 2015-12-28, Sunset at 10:06:08 2015-12-28

Bearing from ZL1RS this morning is around 195 degrees, which places PS-56 at around 163E longitude.

PS-56 (-57,163) is 2555km/195.1° from ZL1RS (-35.209,173.811)

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The windspeed across the predicted path is up to 300km/h

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Update #4 7:30pm 29 Dec 2015 AEST

Sunset greyline at balloon location:

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Based on the estimated bearings from RX stations and the last few sunset/sunrise grey lines at balloon location, it is most likely that PS-56 has completed the second circumnavigation, and is on its way up North across the Tasman sea.

Thanks to everyone again for the great tracking effort, especially John VK2FAK and Joe VK5EI for the early detection of the balloon on the way home and Bob ZL1RS for building up accurate estimations of the flight path using only CW data from the balloon.

Update #5 7:30pm 30 Dec 2015 AEST

Sunset grey line at balloon location:

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Estimated balloon location is at 37 degrees South, 168 Degree South:

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Update #6 10:00am 2 Jan 2016 AEST

PS-56 at sunset yesterday, 0512 1 Jan 2016 UTC

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From the bearings it is roughly East of New Zealand, i.e. half way between Australia and South America.

PS-57 HF PICO balloon WSPR JT9

PS-57 was released at 19:15 12 Dec 2015 UTC

Solar powered party balloon, 25mW TX
TX WSPR, JT9 on 30m only

Dial frequency 10.138700Mhz (standard WSPR dial frequency) for WSPR, JT9.
JT9 at 1100Hz offset.

See HF decoding info at http://picospace.net/?cat=34

Tracking as PS-57 on SNUS http://picospace.net/tracker/new
WSPR call sign is VK3YT http://wsprnet.org/olddb?findcall=vk3yt

Prediction:

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TX scheduling
Minute – Band – Mode – Condition
:00 – 30m – 2 mins WSPR then two x 1 min JT9 – mandatory
:10 – 30m – 2 mins WSPR then two x 1 min JT9 – if batt full
:20 – 30m – 2 mins WSPR then two x 1 min JT9 – if batt full
:30 – 30m – 2 mins WSPR then two x 1 min JT9 – mandatory
:40 – 30m – 2 mins WSPR then two x 1 min JT9 – if batt full
:50 – 30m – 2 mins WSPR then two x 1 min JT9 – if batt full

Update #1 20 Dec 2015 AEST

PS-57 move to within 5.8 degrees from the equator before turning South-East:

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Prediction:

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Update #2 24 Dec 2015 AEST

PS-57 crossed the equator into the Northern Hemisphere this morning. Currently PS-57 is 9000m over Colombia, heading towards Venezuela:

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Prediction:

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Update #3 26 Dec 2015 AEST

PS-57 is mid-way across the Atlantic

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Weather map:

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Predictions:

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Update #4 30 Dec 2015 AEST

PS-57 survived some rough weather in the last few days, with multiple loss of altitude

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It appears to be stable in the last 24H

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Update #4 12 Jan 2015 AEST

After 4 weeks, 1 day and 18 hours of flying time PS-57 went down in the middle of the Indian Ocean last night, taken down by bad weather.

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PS-53 HF PICO balloon WSPR JT9 San Jose USA

PS-53 was released at 13:50 13 Sep 2015 UTC from San Jose USA

Solar powered party balloon, 25mW TX
TX WSPR, JT9 on 30m and 20m

Dial frequency 10.138700Mhz and 14.095600Mhz (standard WSPR dial frequencies) for WSPR, JT9.
JT9 at 1100Hz offset.

See HF decoding info at http://picospace.net/?cat=34

Tracking as PS-53 on SNUS http://picospace.net/tracker/new
WSPR call sign is VK3YT http://wsprnet.org/olddb?findcall=vk3yt

Prediction:

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TX scheduling
Minute – Band – Mode – Condition
:00 – 30m – 2 mins WSPR then two x 1 min JT9 – mandatory
:10 – 20m – 2 mins WSPR then two x 1 min JT9 – if batt full
:20 – 30m – 2 mins WSPR then two x 1 min JT9 – if batt full
:30 – 20m – 2 mins WSPR then two x 1 min JT9 – mandatory
:40 – 30m – 2 mins WSPR then two x 1 min JT9 – if batt full
:50 – 20m – 2 mins WSPR then two x 1 min JT9 – if batt full

Initial WSPR spots

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Assistance with tracking is appreciated, especially from the host country!

Update #1
It appeared that PS-53 had an envelope failure and landed in the Nevada desert.

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PS-54 APRS/Olivia PICO balloon San Jose USA

PS-54 was released at 6:50am local time this morning (Sat 12 Sep 2015) from San Jose USA.

Solar powered party balloon, 10mW TX
APRS on 144.390Mhz initially, call sign W6/VK3YT-11.

Olivia 8/250 with RSID on 434.649Mhz USB (Dial frequency) outside of USA where permitted , call sign PS-54

Tracking as PS-54 on SNUS http://spacenear.us
and VK3YT-11 on APRS.FI http://aprs.fi/#!call=a%2FVK3YT-11&timerange=3600&tail=3600

Prediction:

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Update #1 06:50 Wed 16 Sep 2015 UTC

PS-54 zoomed past the San Francisco Golden bridge at 8000m on the first day, and spent
a whole day bouncing along the west coast of California, right next to some
other local up/down balloon launches.

The weather was rough, the balloon took a few dives before gaining altitude again at sunset, but it sent last transmission at 20:39 local time on Sat night.

It was thought the antenna was damaged from the beating it took during the day, however
it re-appears again today (Tues PDT), heading in from the coast into LA. Looks like it was just out of range for a few days.

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Update #2 14:00 Thurs 17 Sept 2015 UTC

PS-54 flew over California, Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, Kansas, Missouri, Arkansas, Mississippi, Louisiana in the last few days, and is heading into the Gulf of Mexico, where it will be out of range for a while

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Prediction

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Update #3 14:00 Fri 18 Sept 2015 UTC

PS-54 is in Mexico this morning

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Prediction:

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PS-52 HF PICO balloon WSPR JT9

PS-52 was released at 20:40 5 Sep 2015 UTC

Solar powered party balloon, 25mW TX
TX WSPR, JT9 on 30m and 20m

Dial frequency 10.138700Mhz and 14.095600Mhz (standard WSPR dial frequencies) for WSPR, JT9.
JT9 at 1000Hz offset.

See HF decoding info at http://picospace.net/?cat=34

Tracking as PS-52 on SNUS http://picospace.net/tracker/new
WSPR call sign is VK3ANH http://wsprnet.org/olddb?findcall=vk3anh

Prediction:

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TX scheduling
Minute – Band – Mode – Condition
:00 – 30m – 2 mins WSPR then two x 1 min JT9 – mandatory
:10 – 20m – 2 mins WSPR then two x 1 min JT9 – if batt full
:20 – 30m – 2 mins WSPR then two x 1 min JT9 – if batt full
:30 – 20m – 2 mins WSPR then two x 1 min JT9 – mandatory
:40 – 30m – 2 mins WSPR then two x 1 min JT9 – if batt full
:50 – 20m – 2 mins WSPR then two x 1 min JT9 – if batt full

Update #1 8 Sep 2015

After being tossed around for a few hours by a rough weather front that caused rapid altitude changes of the payload in the Southern Ocean, PS-52 went down on Monday night, 4000km from the nearest tracking station ZL1RS in NZ.

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PS-50 HF PICO balloon WSPR JT9

PS-50 was released at 7:20am 23/8/2015 AEST

Solar powered party balloon, 25mW TX
TX WSPR, JT9 on 30m and 20m

Dial frequency 10.138700Mhz and 14.095600Mhz (standard WSPR dial frequencies) for WSPR, JT9.
JT9 will be at 1000Hz offset.

See HF decoding info at http://picospace.net/?cat=34

Tracking as PS-50 on SNUS http://picospace.net/tracker/new
WSPR call sign is VK3YT http://wsprnet.org/olddb?findcall=vk3yt

Prediction:

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TX scheduling
Minute – Band – Mode – Condition
:00 – 30m – 2 mins WSPR then two x 1 min JT9 – mandatory
:10 – 20m – 2 mins WSPR then two x 1 min JT9 – if batt full
:20 – 30m – 2 mins WSPR then two x 1 min JT9 – if batt full
:30 – 20m – 2 mins WSPR then two x 1 min JT9 – mandatory
:40 – 30m – 2 mins WSPR then two x 1 min JT9 – if batt full
:50 – 20m – 2 mins WSPR then two x 1 min JT9 – if batt full

Update #1 5 Sep 2015

PS-50 went down somewhere near South America, last transmission was at 26 Aug 2015 05:02 UTC
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