PS-25 and PS-26 HF PICO balloons

PS-25 and PS-26 PICO balloons were released on Sat 22 Nov 2014, testing out multiple balloon tracking with JT9 and WSPR.

Solar powered 10mW TX HF payloads transmitting JT9 and WSPR with frequency offset of 400Hz for JT9 and 100Hz for WSPR, they could be tracked simultaneously with the modified WSJTX software.

Tracked on SNUS as PS-25 and PS-26.
Callsign on JT9 is VK3YT, and callsigns on WSPR are VK3YT and VK3ANH

TX time and frequency schedule:

0 30m // Mandatory JT9 and WSPR, two per hour
6 30m // Optional JT9 – bat full
10 20m // Optional JT9 and WSPR – batt low
16 20m // Optional JT9 – bat full
20 30m // Optional JT9 and WSPR – batt low
26 30m // Optional JT9 – bat full
30 20m // Mandatory JT9 and WSPR, two per hour
36 20m // Optional JT9 – bat full
40 30m // optional JT9 and WSPR – batt low
46 30m // Optional JT9 – bat full
50 20m // Optional JT9 and WSPR – batt low

Decoding software

Windows installer:
http://picospace.net/wp-content/uploads/files/wsjtx-1.5.0-devel-win32.exe
Source files:
http://picospace.net/wp-content/uploads/files/wsjtx_src_1.5_devel.zip

Update #1 6:30pm

Multi tracking was working well, but PS-26 landed in the Tasman sea shortly after leaving the coastline.

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PS-25 is still heading East towards NZ. SNUS callsign is PS-25, and WSPR callsign is VK3ANH.

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WSPR map for PS-25

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PS-24 HF PICO balloon

PS-24 was a HF test flight with WSPR and JT9, released on Melbourne Cup day, Tues 4/11/2014

Solar powered 10mW TX on 30m and 20m.

Balloon descended near Tasmania, after being tracked by VK6, VK2, VK3, VK5, and ZL1 stations

SNUS map
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WSPR map
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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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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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PS-19 MEL-NSW

PS-19 PICO balloon was released on Sat 30/8/2014

Party balloon, 10mW TX

APRS on 145.175Mhz, callsign VK3YT-12
Olivia 8/250 on 434.650Mhz, tracked on SNUS as PS.
http://spacenear.us/tracker/?filter=PS

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Update #1 4pm 31/8:
Balloon went out of range in Bass Strait, heading towards NZ.
ETA is Tues night.

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PS-18 MEL-TAS-VIC-NSW loop

PS-18 PICO balloon is scheduled for release on Sunday 24/8/2014 at 8am.

Party balloon, 10mW TX

APRS on 145.175Mhz, callsign VK3YT-12
http://aprs.fi/#!mt=roadmap&z=9&call=a%2FVK3YT-12

Olivia 8/250 on 434.650Mhz, tracked on SNUS as PS.
http://spacenear.us/tracker/?filter=PS

Prediction shows the balloon will loop over Tas, VIC and NSW over several days.

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PS-16 MEL-ADELAIDE

PS-16 was released from Melbourne on 12/8/2014, and took a different path from other PS flights: towards Adelaide, South Australia.

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Details:

10mW TX, APRS on 145.175Mhz, callsign VK3YT-12
Olivia on 434.650Mhz, tracked on spacenear.us as PS.

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As of 5:30pm the balloon was travelling very slowly towards Ararat.

Update #1:

Wow that was the first PS trip to Adelaide from Melbourne, and the furthest west a PS Pico balloon has travelled. It is not very common to see such unusual wind pattern.

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Update #2:

PS-16 went in range Thurs afternoon

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Prediction for the next few days:

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Update #3: 7:30am Fri 15/8

PS-16 has done second pass of Adelaide and now will be heading back to Victoria

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Updated prediction:

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Update #4: 10:30am Sat 16/8

Looks like there were some changes in the wind pattern, the balloon did another loop around Adelaide

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Update #5: 5:30pm Sat 16/8

The balloon landed and was picked up by Bob VK5FO and Ray VK5RR.

The payload was on the wet grass which killed APRS transmissions, but they did a great job with locating and retrieving the payload, using a combination of DF and software decoding to track the UHF signal. Thanks guys!

Final decoded packet:

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