PS-21 PICO balloon with HF payload

PS-21 was released at 7:30am Sun 21/9/2014 from Melbourne.

Multimode HF testing.

PICO party balloon, 15mW TX

30m and 40m WSPR on 10.1402Mhz and 7.0401Mhz
Olivia and JT65 on 10.142Mhz and 7.047Mhz

Callsign VK3YT

Tracked on spacenear.us

Prediction:

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Initial WSPR map:

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Update #1 5:30pm

WSPR is working well

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Olivia could not cope with heavy fading very well, we have been using JT65 for tracking

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Update #2 7:30pm we got some very good WSPR paths from the balloon

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KK4MBI 16795km
W3BI 16932km
N2NOM 16762km
W3CSW 16730km

Updated prediction:

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Update #3 5:30am 22/9

PS-21 made it to the middle of Australia overnight

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Update #4 6:40pm 22/9

PS-21 re-appeared in the afternoon near Cairns, heading out to sea

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This is pretty cool, showing ZL1RS receiving Olivia from the balloon, from 2900km away

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Update #5 7:30am 24/9

PS-21 descended near Fiji overnight, marking the end of the test.
The balloon was tracked all the way down to 2700m before contact was lost.

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Last WSPR spots
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Top WSPR distances
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