[aprssig] BALLOON unproto paths

[Russ Chadwick]

FWIW.  Edge of Space Sciences (EOSS), a Denver-area amateur radio/ballooning
organization has launched 87 balloon payloads in the past 10 years and has
recovered all of them.  In the past several years, APRS trackers have been
standard equipment on the payload string.  In fact, on the most recent
flight, there were 5 APRS trackers, and you can see the details including
the various frequencies used here,

http://www.eoss.org/ansrecap/ar_100/recap87.htm

As you can see, we used 5 different amateur radio frequencies, including
144.390 MHz.  Unfortunately, not all of the trackers worked, but the purpose
of this flight was to test various trackers, and we did.

We use volunteer hams with I-gating capability to relay the received
position reports to APRS-IS and on to findu.com.  We usually have redundant
I-gaters for each APRS frequency in use.

We also have redundant entry points for the FAA air traffic controllers to
monitor balloon position from findu.com and relay the balloon position to
pilots.  The positions are referenced to VOR locations so they are in terms
the pilots easily recognize.  These two Balloon Report Page entry points
are:

http://www.wxqa.com/cgi-bin/balon1.cgi

http://www.eoss.org/findu/

There will be two heavy balloon launch carrying student payloads, EOSS88 and
EOSS89 on April 16 and another one, EOSS90, carrying a glider with
inflatable wings for the University of Kentucky on April 30.  All three will
have APRS trackers.

Russ   KB0TVJ


-----Original Message-----
From: aprssig-bounces at lists.tapr.org
[mailto:aprssig-bounces at lists.tapr.org]On Behalf Of Robert Bruninga
Sent: Sunday, April 03, 2005 6:04 PM
To: jdbandman at earthlink.net; aprssig at lists.tapr.org
Subject: Re: [aprssig] BALLOON unproto paths


Balloons are very welcome and encouraged on the USA
144.39 APRS frequency.  Moving them to another frequency
makes random recoverly harder, and doesnt let anyone else
enjoy the event...   All that we ask is to just use ONE HOP
in the path.   These days that should be WIDE1-1.   That's all.
It is very simple....  Bob