PS-23 PICO balloon HF payload testing

ZL1RS · Post by **ZL1RS** » Thu Oct 16, 2014 5:20 pm

Thanks Andy. Is there a reason why you don't use a resonant antenna on the balloon flight ... e.g. the transmitter hanging under the balloon on a 7.2m length of wire and another 7.2m trailing as the other half of a 30m band dipole? Weight? or ?

Quite incredible for 25mW ... currently the 30m JT65 signal is decoding at -1 "dB"

FWIW at this distance I am finding Olivia decodes OK when the JT65 signal gets to -5. JT65 is generally reliable to -20 or -22 "dB"

I hope all goes well on Saturday, I am looking forward to it.

73,

VK2FAK · Post by **VK2FAK** » Thu Oct 16, 2014 6:22 pm

Hi all..

Not doing as good as Bob here.....JT65 comes in at a best figure of -9dB and Olivia I am still yet to decode this evening...deep fading kills it about mid point of TX...

Just now ( 8:39GMT) decoded an Olivia.....s/n remained a steady -9 to -10dB.

looking back, I think the one I just decoded had no data....and a time of something like 23:59:00 which is way way off..

ZL1RS · Post by **ZL1RS** » Thu Oct 16, 2014 7:07 pm

John ... maybe someone put up a decent antenna for 30m this week

VK5EI · Post by **VK5EI** » Thu Oct 16, 2014 7:35 pm

Evening QRM about to smash vk3yt balloon in test

VK3YT · Post by **VK3YT** » Thu Oct 16, 2014 11:09 pm

ZL1RS wrote:Thanks Andy. Is there a reason why you don't use a resonant antenna on the balloon flight ... e.g. the transmitter hanging under the balloon on a 7.2m length of wire and another 7.2m trailing as the other half of a 30m band dipole? Weight? or ?

Quite incredible for 25mW ... currently the 30m JT65 signal is decoding at -1 "dB"
FWIW at this distance I am finding Olivia decodes OK when the JT65 signal gets to -5. JT65 is generally reliable to -20 or -22 "dB"

I hope all goes well on Saturday, I am looking forward to it.

73,

yes weight is the problem, i need to trim every mg!

VK2FAK · Post by **VK2FAK** » Fri Oct 17, 2014 7:58 am

Hi all....

Is the payload still running or being packaged up.....heard an Olivia earlier but nothing after it..

Yeah yeah Bob.....one day you will have to pull down the pole on the South Is, which Is holding up one end of your dipole.....then you can talk..lol

VK3YT · Post by **VK3YT** » Fri Oct 17, 2014 8:22 am

VK2FAK wrote:Hi all....

Is the payload still running or being packaged up.....heard an Olivia earlier but nothing after it..

Yeah yeah Bob.....one day you will have to pull down the pole on the South Is, which Is holding up one end of your dipole.....then you can talk..lol

Still on John, will pack it up tonight.

VK2FAK · Post by **VK2FAK** » Fri Oct 17, 2014 8:41 am

H all....

Just decoded a partial Ollivia.....this is what I was talking about in an earlier post from yesterday....

$$VK3YT,0,23:59:48,2.0000,0.0000,0,0

is this a hard wired thing at the moment.....looks a similar time as the one I decoded yesterday...
its only 40mins past the hour now...surely not 59 mins.....

VK3YT · Post by **VK3YT** » Fri Oct 17, 2014 9:11 am

VK2FAK wrote:H all....

Just decoded a partial Ollivia.....this is what I was talking about in an earlier post from yesterday....

$$VK3YT,0,23:59:48,2.0000,0.0000,0,0

is this a hard wired thing at the moment.....looks a similar time as the one I decoded yesterday...
its only 40mins past the hour now...surely not 59 mins.....

Good pickup John,
The payload is indoor now so every now and then it takes too long for gps to lock and causes a reset.
What you see is the first packet after reset.

ZL1RS · Post by **ZL1RS** » Sat Oct 18, 2014 7:25 am

Seems to be in the air ........

VK2FAK · Post by **VK2FAK** » Sat Oct 18, 2014 7:37 am

Hi all....

Yes Bob, has been up since 7am.......Andy said you have been getting Olivia already....

if you can get IRC....#picospace..

VK3YT · Post by **VK3YT** » Sat Oct 18, 2014 7:51 am

Prediction:

VK5EI · Post by **VK5EI** » Sat Oct 18, 2014 8:49 am

Nice spot Andy, the little transmitter doing well

VK2XSO · Post by **VK2XSO** » Sat Oct 18, 2014 8:46 pm

Looks like this one has landed local to me. I'm headed out that way tomorrow so I'll have a look around for it.
I had the computer set up to decode data, but it looks like the front end is needs some fixin'.

VK3YT · Post by **VK3YT** » Sat Oct 18, 2014 9:51 pm

Hi all,

It’s been a fun day, thanks to everyone for assistance with testing.
The balloon was tracked all the way until it landed near Tamworth, by VK1, VK2, VK3, VK5, VK6, VK7, ZL1 stations.

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.

So if you want to see what JT9 can do with 25mW from a balloon , download the software, connect the radio and see for yourself!

Same frequencies and time-slots, but with JT9 in place of JT65.

Regards
Andy

VK5EI · Post by **VK5EI** » Sat Oct 18, 2014 10:17 pm

Great fun Andy, very interesting tracking your balloon payload, still getting wspr reports coming thru on 30m. Might be hanging from a tree branch

Will look out for your next one.
73

VK3KCX · Post by **VK3KCX** » Sun Oct 19, 2014 4:59 am

Hi Andy, JT9 is good! just a note to others that may be unfamiliar with this mode / software - make sure you select JT9 and not JT9 / JT65 under the mode tab otherwise it will only decode JT9 signals that are above 2Khz on the waterfall.

VK2XSO · Post by **VK2XSO** » Sun Oct 19, 2014 5:20 pm

: HB-VK3YKT #1

VK5EI wrote:Great fun Andy, very interesting tracking your balloon payload, still getting wspr reports coming thru on 30m. Might be hanging from a tree branch
Will look out for your next one.
73

That's exactly where it was.

We rounded up some of the scouts from the local jota and took them out for a bit of a drive in the country side.
Ron VK2HRD was out there first and didn't take long to spot the balloon in the tree on the side of the hill.
We could see the bottom end of the antenna dangling in the breeze and it looked like the payload might has caught on a fence or a tree as it came over the last hill and snapped off.
After some looking around we couldn't find much and has a much closer look at the tree. The payload was very well camouflaged in the tree with most of the leaves being the same size as the solar panels.
It was high up in the tree and we had a few attempts of cutting and breaking branches to get it down but in the end we just had to snare it and carefully pull it down.

So the payload has been recovered and there are lots of excited kiddies.
The two tiny panels broke during the recovery and I've disconnected the battery so it doesn't cause a problem with the currently flying balloon.
Battery voltage was 1.6V, the leaves of the tree had been shading the panels.

VK5EI · Post by **VK5EI** » Sun Oct 19, 2014 5:58 pm

Well done Trash

Great to see the kids enjoying the funside of amateur radio.

VK3YT · Post by **VK3YT** » Mon Oct 20, 2014 6:03 am

Good recovery Trash!
If you send it back I can repair and re-launch for the Scouts to track on their day off!
Regards,
Andy

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PS-23 PICO balloon HF payload testing

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