Monthly Archives: October 2014

PS-23 PICO balloon HF payload

PS-23 is planned for release on 18/10/2014

Solar powered 25mW TX
HF payload will transmit on 30m and 20m using Olivia, JT65 and WSPR.=

WSJTX software has been modified to assist with automatic software tracking and uploading to spacenear.us

Windows install file:
wsjtx-1.5.0-devel-win32.exe
Source files:
wsjtx_src_1.5_devel.zip

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The new “Telemetry” Option in WSJTX will enable uploading of received JT65 packets to a server on the internet where the packets are correlated, processed and uploaded to spacenear.us
This is the only change in the software, ie. with the option turned off it behaves like a normal WSJTX application.

– WSPR on 30m (dial 10.138700Mhz) and 20m (dial 14.095600Mhz)
– Olivia on 14.075000Mhz centre (dial 14.074000Mhz)
– JT65 on 10.142000Mhz and 14.075000Mhz centre (dial 10.141000Mhz and 14.074000Mhz);

Callsign VK3YT

Tracking at http://spacenear.us/tracker/?filter=VK3YT

Scheduled TX time and frequency:
First column is the minute #
Second column is frequency band
batt low: TX unless battery is low
batt full: TX if battery is full

0 30m // Mandatory JT65 and WSPR two per hour
4 30m // Optional Olivia – bat low
6 30m // Optional JT65 – bat full
10 20m // Optional JT65 and WSPR – batt low
14 20m // Optional GPS and Olivia – bat low
16 20m // Optional JT65 – bat full
20 30m // Optional JT65 and WSPR – batt low
24 30m // Mandatory Olivia
26 30m // Optional JT65 – bat full
30 20m // Mandatory JT65 and WSPR, two per hour
34 20m // Optional Olivia – bat low
36 20m // Optional JT65 – bat full
40 30m // optional JT65 and WSPR – batt low
44 30m // Optional Olivia – bat low
46 30m // Optional JT65 – bat full
50 20m // Optional JT65 and WSPR – batt low
54 20m // Mandatory Olivia

Update #1 10:50pm 18/10

The balloon was tracked all the way until it landed near Tamworth, by VK1, VK2, VK3, VK5, VK6, VK7, ZL1 stations, using Olivia and JT65 on 30m and 20m.

We had WSPR spots for the balloon from as far as the US, 15,000km away.

Payload #2 of PS-23 will be released tomorrow.
Initially planned for a multi balloon tracking test, it will do WSPR, Olivia and JT9.

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WSPR spots:

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Update #2 6:24pm 19/10

Second payload was released this morning with the same callsign.
It managed to stay up until the evening when it went down into the Tasman Sea.

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We had a record distance for WSPR spot, 17,075km

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