Forum Krótkofalarskie PKI

Hello, again!

Looks like there will be a balloon launch from Latvia tomorrow morning (Friday, April 10). It will be done by Ventspils University College, I'm not involved with them, just passing the information I know, if anybody is able to help them with the tracking as it will be on a workday.
Expected burst altitude is around 25 km, so it should cover some part of northern Poland.

Launch time: 9:00-10:00 (local time), 6:00-7:00 UTC
Launch site: Ventspils Airport (KO07sj)

Callsign: IRBE-1 (Infra-Red Balloon Experiment-1)
434.276 MHz, USB
RTTY, 50 baud
425 Hz shift
ASCII 8 bits, no parity, 2 stop bits

Telemetry in standard UKHAS format.

Predicted flight trajectory, expected burst altitude around 25 km:

Whish them good luck! Seems to far for my station to receive/decode.

If anybody is going to track this, the team reports having some issues with the GPS, they are delaying the launch and hoping to fix it till 10 UTC.

Ok still waiting. 73

Please keep us updated.

They have fixed the problems and it has finally appeared on the map. Launch in a few minutes, AFAIK.

I keep my fingers crossed for a successful balloon flight GL SP5MG 73

Witam Pana Romka SP4MPH

Witam Pana Piotra i pozdrawiam!

Dlaczego SP4MPH nic nie odbiera?
Coś jest nie tak z GPS, cały czas te same odczyty i 0 sat.

Uh oh, they haven't properly set Ublox GPS into flight mode, so it has stopped reporting position and altitude above 12 km.
It's a 600g balloon with a slow ascent rate and looks like it will come down somewhere in Lithuania. Maybe. Eh..

Is frequency at this time as announced?

Wow, I almost got it!
0:39695>d(!2000L&S3$$IRB1,453,:03:1;,56.9777,22.4844,12322,0, .0,-3.11,-24.94,3.87,0,n*EE3$$IE1,454,11:03:14,5>9767,22.4844,1232,0.0,-2.95,-26.563.(,0,n*1315
$$IRBE1,455,01:03:48,56.9777,22.4844,12322,,p.0,-3.35,-26.23,3.86,0,n $RBG1,456,1103:49,5&.

434.272.1 MHz

EDIT: first green frame: $$IRBE1,462,11:05:34,56.9777,22.4844,12322,0,0.0,-3.51,-25.27,3.86,0,n*894A

It is a few kHz below the nominal frequency, as reported on UKHAS IRC channel #highaltitude (Freenode network).
I'm not tracking today, can't confirm.

I played with traingulation. Here are my results (readings without preamp):

azimuth; s/n dB
0; 13
5; 14
10; 16
15; 17
20; 16
25; 14
30; 12

It's interesting, if GPS will start up again when they drop below the height of 12000 m?

Wakes up!

It got fix now, and my bearing is 15 deg, so my measurements were right ;-)

1 degree below horizon and s/n 25..27dB, 523km. Not bad.

I think, not. But, anyway I tried dwaw the trangualtion line from SP5ULN trangulation. Here was a 15min ago.

At this moment:
$$IRBE1,554,11:32:32,56.6687,23.0314,12280,0,0.0,-5.69,-18.82,3.82,0,n*4FDB

it started to drift left anf right with frequency. It it typical to balloon explosion.

EDIT: strength of signal is now quickly falling down (11:40 UTC)

EDIT2: 11:44 UTC - no signal.