Author Topic: Re: New Balloon cruising at 120 at the moment (Read 45501 times)

cimmo · « **Reply #25 on:** April 19, 2016, 03:34:26 am »

Click bait thread title.
I might have been interested if it was given something more descriptive - like "radio in a balloon around Greenland".

ez24 · « **Reply #26 on:** April 19, 2016, 04:25:55 am »

Quote from: cimmo on April 19, 2016, 03:34:26 am

Click bait thread title.
I might have been interested if it was given something more descriptive - like "radio in a balloon around Greenland".

I agree, the OP can change the title

botcrusher · « **Reply #27 on:** April 19, 2016, 11:31:17 am »

Are you using the watchdog on the arduino? It could explain why things kick back in, and it probably has / will save your bacon.

DaveBev · « **Reply #28 on:** April 19, 2016, 05:44:24 pm »

Hi
Not using the watchdog timer in fact am running the atmega out of spec ... at 20mhz at 3.3v and it seems to be happy.. I have efuses set at 2.7v
Ok so I have been asked to change the title so I will

Dave

ez24 · « **Reply #29 on:** April 19, 2016, 07:44:20 pm »

Nice title

botcrusher · « **Reply #30 on:** April 20, 2016, 01:28:14 am »

Love the new title.
Thumbs up to running things out of spec. Always 100% stable
_{most of the time}

ez24 · « **Reply #31 on:** April 20, 2016, 01:40:33 am »

Balloon got afraid of Iraq and made a U turn

http://qrp-labs.com/ultimate3/ve3kcl-balloons/ve3kcl-s9.html

German_EE · « **Reply #32 on:** April 24, 2016, 04:51:51 pm »

Yep, it's STILL going and on target for a round the world trip

ez24 · « **Reply #33 on:** April 24, 2016, 08:07:22 pm »

I think it is headed for California

Is it chasing the solar plane?

botcrusher · « **Reply #34 on:** April 24, 2016, 11:56:56 pm »

Wow. I must say flight time is quite something. This thing has been around the world in under three weeks, not burst or been shot down, leaked, electronically failed or otherwise stopped working.

Out of curiosity, are the electronics encased at all, or just braving the elements?

macboy · « **Reply #35 on:** April 25, 2016, 04:42:44 pm »

Looks like it has entered Canadian airspace again, narrowly missing the lowest reaches of Alaska, and returning to its home country. It has now traveled over 47000 km.
This is very impressive, and I am watching the progress every day.

miguelvp · « **Reply #36 on:** April 25, 2016, 04:55:05 pm »

It might take a dip into the pacific.
Edit: maybe not, might endup on the mainland and take a little detour over the US to pop back where it started.

http://earth.nullschool.net/#current/wind/surface/level/orthographic=221.92,32.93,330

I think the launch site for the balloons was critical for this endeavor, seems it caught the jet-stream right on, good job!

ez24 · « **Reply #37 on:** April 25, 2016, 10:27:00 pm »

I think it is getting closer to the sail plane. As far as I know the plane is in San Francisco (Moffit Field) and will probably go to Phoenix but I do not know when. It will be funny if they cross paths. Not funny if the balloon takes it down.

Red Squirrel · « **Reply #38 on:** April 25, 2016, 11:40:48 pm »

This is really awesome! I figured weather balloons basically just died after a certain height, did you get lucky or is this a different type of balloon?

DaveBev · « **Reply #39 on:** April 26, 2016, 01:47:46 am »

The balloon is a 36" party balloon that is usually inflated with helium and usually says" Happy Birthday" or " Too Old to Retire " or some other stuff. This type of balloon is called a Superpressure balloon, however the name is a bit misleading, as the "super pressure" in this balloon is only about 1/4 psi. What happens with a normal weather balloon, that is made of latex, is it goes up and expands up to 10 times it's volume till it bursts and then comes down by parachute. In a Superpressure balloon the envelope is less elastic and can't expand more than maybe 25%. It will rise till it is expanded, and cannot expand any more. At this point the density of the gas in the balloon becomes constant, at a certain altitude, and it will float along at this level ...depending on the weight of what it is lifting. In this case the float level is 10000 meters or 32800 feet.

All explained on the pages of this site http://qrp-labs.com/ultimate3/ve3kcl-balloons/ve3kcl-s9.html

Brumby · « **Reply #40 on:** April 26, 2016, 01:57:19 am »

I will be interested to see how close it might go the the original launch position.

German_EE · « **Reply #41 on:** April 26, 2016, 05:13:13 pm »

A request, on the second lap of the world please could you use a different pair of colors? This would make lap #1 easy to differentiate from lap #2. Also, the next time the girlfriend gets lost I'll just show her your route map, we've finally found something that has poorer navigation skills than she has

ez24 · « **Reply #42 on:** April 26, 2016, 05:29:47 pm »

How were you able to track it over some sections of the Pacific? ships ?
thanks

botcrusher · « **Reply #43 on:** April 26, 2016, 09:20:09 pm »

Oh man, so close, come on, come on.... What's up with the dead zone almost *exactly* over Nevada and Arizona?
Seems oddly exact, and i don't see why those states would jam gps. No war right? XD

Vgkid · « **Reply #44 on:** April 26, 2016, 10:16:47 pm »

Quote from: botcrusher on April 26, 2016, 09:20:09 pm

Oh man, so close, come on, come on.... What's up with the dead zone almost *exactly* over Nevada and Arizona?
Seems oddly exact, and i don't see why those states would jam gps. No war right? XD

Area 51...

miguelvp · « **Reply #45 on:** April 26, 2016, 10:20:50 pm »

Quote from: ez24 on April 26, 2016, 05:29:47 pm

How were you able to track it over some sections of the Pacific? ships ?
thanks

QRP has a long reach with little power, in the balloon case its even better because of its altitude.

Look at this videos posted on the RF side of the forum:
https://www.eevblog.com/forum/rf-microwave/explaining-the-black-art-of-rf-design/

botcrusher · « **Reply #46 on:** April 26, 2016, 10:22:10 pm »

Lol.
Doubt they jam gps over two entire states.
Plus, if it flew over area 51, I'm sure it would have been greeted by a pair of f-22s / defensive laser / cruise missile / probably the laser.

miguelvp · « **Reply #47 on:** April 26, 2016, 10:22:34 pm »

Quote from: Vgkid on April 26, 2016, 10:16:47 pm

Quote from: botcrusher on April 26, 2016, 09:20:09 pm
Oh man, so close, come on, come on.... What's up with the dead zone almost *exactly* over Nevada and Arizona?
Seems oddly exact, and i don't see why those states would jam gps. No war right? XD
Area 51...

Batteries drain quick during the night, needs the sun to wake up again on the next day.

ez24 · « **Reply #48 on:** April 27, 2016, 01:30:14 am »

Quote from: botcrusher on April 26, 2016, 09:20:09 pm

Oh man, so close, come on, come on.... What's up with the dead zone almost *exactly* over Nevada and Arizona?
Seems oddly exact, and i don't see why those states would jam gps. No war right? XD

The US is always at war with the "bad" guys. So far the bad guys are not flying party balloons

DaveBev · « **Reply #49 on:** April 27, 2016, 01:53:55 am »

On the quiet part over Nevada and Arizona... The Balloon transmitter was sleeping, and it needs about 16 degrees of sun over the horizon to turn on the electronics.. .that happened this morning near White Sands in New Mexico at about 13:00 UTC. The transmitter transmits on 10.140265mhz and is received by automatic receivers all over the world and received spots are put in a database at Wsprnet.org where anyone in the world can access the information. The Ham call for the balloon is VE3KCL, and by typing that in, you will get the location and time of the received signals.
There is a Ham in New Zealand who regularly received the signal from the balloon all over the world as signals in this particular frequency band, travel quite far at certain times.

On coming home: One can never really trust a weather report , but if you look at the attachment, you could be hopeful that the balloon might come home to Ontario tomorrow... at which point, if it does, I will pop a cork on a bottle of champagne. And this would complete the balloon's rather drunken and lengthy circumnavigation of the globe.

http://qrp-labs.com/ultimate3/ve3kcl-balloons/ve3kcl-s9.html


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Author Topic: Re: New Balloon cruising at 120 at the moment (Read 45501 times)

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