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Good evening, everyone. It's time for HamTalk
Live. It's episode number 148, Pico Ballooning,
recorded live on Thursday, January 10th, 2019.
I'm your host, Neil Rapp, WB9VPG. Thanks for
tuning into this episode of HamTalk Live. Tonight
we're joined by Bill Brown, WB8ELK, and we'll
take your calls live in just a few minutes. Last
week, Patrick Stoddard WD9EWK, Indof Buckley
in 6UTC, and David Aikens in 6HHR were here to
talk about operations on the Queen Mary. If you
missed the show, you can listen anytime at HamTalkLive
.com or on your favorite podcast app or YouTube.
We also want to welcome our listeners on WTWW
5085 AM. HamTalk Live re -broadcasts are now
on WTWW shortwave on Saturday nights along with
several other ham radio programs. So thanks to
Ted Randall and Holly for getting and his crew
for adding us to the Saturday night ham radio
show lineup and we'll let you know exactly when
the Time is going to air they're kind of juggling
around some of the shows and some of the times
I think we were on at seven o 'clock central
Last Saturday and that was our first time on
and and it just kind of happened. So I didn't
have any warning so We'll figure out the times
and get those announced, but we will be on Saturday
night, but we won't be live so you won't be able
to call in on WTWW, but we will have the rebroadcast
available every week over there on 5 0 8 5 a
.m. So that's new and then also we've got a new
phone system tonight of kind of been telling
you that Skype was on borrowed time and We finally
lost the capability to merge calls on Monday
on Skype. So we've got a new phone system in
place Thanks to NN1C. That's Chicken with Fries
new fancy call sign Marty he got us hooked up
with some Some real phone stuff. So we've been
working on that all week. And so we just finished
it up a few hours ago So we're gonna give it
a try tonight. So We'll see how that goes, but
we're kind of excited about some of the possibilities
for people calling in. We'll have some more capabilities
to do some things to make it a little better.
So we'll see how that goes, but thanks to Marty
for getting that ready to go, especially today
when we were just trying to finish up the last
little bit. So we've got it. Going at least it
worked in the test. So I do have to give you
a new phone number to call tonight. Now next
week we'll have everything back to the old phone
number. We're going to move the phone number
over to the new system, but tonight you'll need
to call a different number. So I'm going to give
you that number right now. It's not time to call
yet, but let me give you the new number. It's
still area code 812, but the new number is 650.
9556. That's 812650. 9556. We'll be using that
tonight only, just until we get the new system
all transferred over. But if you want to call
in during the last segment of the show tonight
and ask some questions, that's how you'll do
it. Or you can tweet us or at HamTalk Live on
Twitter and you can do that whenever you want
and I'll... go over there and check that from
time to time. So you can always get us over there
on Twitter. So I'll be back with Bill right after
this word from ICOM America right here. on HamTalk
Live. Attention all hams, ICOM knows that ham
clubs play a big role in bringing ham communities
together to learn from their peers and industry
leaders. As a way to give back and help you on
this mission, ICOM has launched a promotion exclusively
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ICOM swag, a Skype presentation, or for your
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Register today for your chance to win. Enter
today at www .icomamerica .com slash hams. Hamfest
net registration is open to U .S. organizations
only. You're listening to Ham Talk Live with
Neil Rapp. Yesterday my XYL said she'd leave
me if I didn't give up ham radio. Over. Thanks
to ICOM for sponsoring the show again tonight
and again some cool deals out there for ICOM
for a couple more months, so make sure you check
those out. Visit them at ICOMAmerica .com. Tonight
our guest is Bill Brown, WB8ELK. He lives in
Huntsville, Alabama and is the father of high
-altitude ballooning. He's launched 500 missions
since 1987. Some of those include amateur television,
crossband and simplex repeaters, and live camera
video downlinks. He was also managing editor
of 73 magazine and had a ballooning column in
CQVHF for about a decade and lately he's been
flying a lot of Pico balloons on VHF and HF around
the world and that's what we're going to focus
mostly on tonight. So Bill, thanks for being
on the show. Hey, great to be here. Well, we
heard from you a little bit on the kind of the
general ballooning show that we did with Josh
here a few weeks ago. And so why don't you tell
us how you got started into ballooning and then
we're going to kind of focus in on the Pico balloons.
Oh, sure. When I first started in ham radio,
I was very interested in amateur television and
slow -scan television. But amateur television
is usually in the UHF portion of the band, so
you're basically in line of sight. So antenna
height is everything. So I watched a documentary
about Joe Kittinger, who parachuted from 102
,000 feet with Project Man High back in the 1960s.
And at the time he held the highest parachute
jump and actually achieved broke the sound barrier
during his descent. And he described this view
of the world seeing the blackness of space during
daylight, seeing the curve of the earth. And
it was a view that I wanted to see. However,
I wasn't about to. go up on a balloon and parachute
off from 20 miles above the earth. So I came
up with a little safer version and that was to
take a weather balloon like they use for the
weather viewer uses for atmospheric sounding
and I observed a couple of their launches and
I says well you know I could put a camera and
a transmitter and a video system and I could
actually see the view that Joe Kittinger described.
So back in 1987, 31 years ago, I launched my
first balloon, which was the first balloon to
carry a TV camera at the time in the United States
and in fact the world. So we went up to about
80 or 90 ,000 feet and then subsequent flights
we had a live camera and you could literally
see the curvature of the earth and the blackness
of space. during broad daylight, because you're
above 99 % of the Earth's atmosphere. So that's
how I got started. I've launched 500 balloons
since then. One was a 400 -pound rocket we launched
from the Gulf of Mexico on a balloon that took
33 tanks of helium. And we were going to try
and send the rocket into space and back again.
It wouldn't go into orbit, but we were going
to break The altitude limit for space and we
didn't achieve that but we did on us one of our
launches. We did several those it was called
the halo project. Project halo and. We had live
video downlinks coming back from both the gondola
and the rocket and. So that's on the mega payload
size 400 pounds and up. And then I decided just
a couple of years ago, I witnessed some efforts
to actually fly on a party balloon. We're not
talking the latex rubber party balloons, but
we're talking about a three -foot diameter Mylar
foil balloon like they use for happy birthday
parties. And one of the students in a science
camp I was hosting I mentioned the fact that
have you ever attached a note to a balloon and
let it go and get a response back? And he said
he had on one of these Mylar balloons and got
a response back from a fellow in Canada 400 miles
away. And his question to me was how far and
what altitude do you think a balloon like this
would go? Just a party balloon. So that prompted
me to Look into building a payload that was lightweight
enough to be launched on. They'd have to be under
under an ounce to be successful. There were a
couple of people at times that have actually
had done this. Leo Bodnar, M0XER and Anthony
Nguyen down in Australia, VK3YT, using one single
Qualitex silver foil balloon. And so I decided
to jump at the fray. There's probably about a
dozen on these ultra -lightweight Pico payloads.
I decided to make one that was rugged, could
be handled by students in classrooms, and yet
light and weight enough to fly on one of these
balloons. So I came up with the Sky Tracker.
It weighs 12 grams, ready to fly. It's totally
solar powered. I use flexible power cells on
it. They're made by PowerFilmSolar .com. The
marketing manager actually is a ham and they
often have a booth at the Dayton Hamvention.
But they're very rugged. You can have kids play
with them and they aren't going to break. because
when you take them into a classroom, they like
to touch the payload and see the experiment.
And it's very easy to go into a classroom with
one of these systems. It's a great STEM project
because all you need is a little small canister
of helium and a three dollar party balloon and
one of my sky trackers or equivalent. And you
don't have to lug this huge hundred pound tank
of helium and lately the cost of helium has been
going sky -high and a big tank of helium is going
to cost $150 or more so I just have one cubic
foot of helium in these balloons and they fly
in the jet stream and actually can go around
the world in about 11 days to 14 days this time
of year if you get the winds just right So that
was my impetus to to try and find a something
that I could take into classrooms to teach students
about space and science and ham radio and The
big draw is if you can show a student that they
can follow These pico balloons on their smartphone
in real time that hooks them into ham radio Because
they you've got to incorporate the smartphones
So the we've been one of my first flights I used
a little bit bigger balloon for that one. It's
made out of sushi wrap and Company in California
who is also a ham K6 RPT and his son they have
a company called scientific balloon solutions
calm and They sell about a three foot by seven
and a half foot plastic tube balloon that's made
out of the sushi wrap and it's a little more
expensive than three dollars but it can go up
to about 42 ,000 feet and stay there for months
and sometimes over a year my first one I tried
with that balloon with my 12 ounce my 12 gram
board went around the world six times six and
a half times in 75 days so now you've got a low
low low orbiting earth orbiting mini satellite
on ham radio and During the winter months like
I say you can take Between 11 days and 20 days
to go completely around the world if you are
above the weather I've had students at UC San
Diego, they sent one of these up with that same
SBS 13 balloon from Scientific Balloon Solutions
and they went around the world six times in 90
days. Alan Adamson, W7QO, he's developed his
own tracker. He used one of these balloons and
went around the world over 30 times and It stopped
transmitting after about a year and a half. Just
a month or two ago, it came alive for one transmission
over Boulder, Colorado, and it was still alive.
But something's gone awry with it after being
up there for two years, but it was over two years
in there and it's still flying. So it's amazing
what can be done with these Pico balloons. Like
I say, the experimenters are all over the world.
We have several in Europe that are designing
payloads and one in Canada, one in New York,
a couple in New York actually. So we just have
a lot of fun introducing students to ham radio
this way and it is an inspiration to them because
they have launched their very own ham radio mini
satellite. It doesn't go into space but it goes
in this and basically right in the jet stream.
They learn about the weather patterns too. Absolutely,
that's a great way to teach all those things
and let them observe a lot of those weather patterns
up there almost into space. Let's talk a little
bit about some of the The differences here you
have to You know have fairly light payloads to
start with and then on the pico balloons They've
got to be even less. So what do you do to accommodate?
the difference what What are you doing to lighten
that payload and do you have to cut back on an
experiment on board while the transmitter is
up there? What do you have to do differently?
Well, with a traditional latex weather balloon
flight, you're limited to six pounds maximum
per payload and a total of 12 pounds. So you
have a lot of room for adding batteries and and
large experiments. However, in the Pico balloon,
the real challenge is to make it as light as
humanly possible. And when you think you've got
it about as light as you can possibly get it,
you have to make it lighter. So I had to do things
like the thickness of the PC board. I actually
used a PC board as about one third the normal
thickness. I found a PC board company in China
that would produce these for no extra charge
and that really helped. That cut down a lot of
weight. The other thing I did was instead of
a battery on it, it's totally solar powered.
There are no batteries at all. That cuts down
on the weight because batteries or even a small
lithium polymer battery is extremely heavy. when
you're working with something that weighs 12
grams. The lightest LiPo battery I could find
was four grams and I have flown that where it's
rechargeable by the solar panels. But the heavier
your payload the lower your float altitude and
you are at greater risk of hitting a storm. So
if you're down around 23 to 26 ,000 feet Your
likelihood of hitting a hitting weather and getting
knocked out of the sky at some point during the
flight It's much greater than flying at 42 ,000
feet where you're above 95 % of the storms So
that's your biggest the thing that will cause
your mission to fail is is usually hitting a
thunderstorm or an ice storm or some sort of
weather that That reaches up into that altitude
that you're flying So this time of year your
biggest threat would be icing up but if you get
above about 29 or 30 ,000 feet you are Going
at least halfway around the world. There was
a group that just launched today. In fact from
Pella, Iowa The call sign on that one is whiskey
Bravo zero United radio whiskey -4 And I'll give
you two websites that, of course, those of you
who have experimented with APRS, aprs .fi is
the go -to website for tracking vehicles and
planes and balloons. So you would enter WB0URW
-4 into the call sign field and you can see the
track of today's flight. Course it ended over
Indiana. It was launched from Iowa Because the
Sun went down so we'll have to wait until tomorrow
to see where it is It may actually be too far
out in the Atlantic to hit any ground stations
because it's two meter a PRS on that one The
last one they did was WB 0 you are w -3 and if
you search for that one You'll see its last report
Keep in mind it was launched from Pella, Iowa
from a school there it actually went halfway
around the world and the last report we got from
it was over Eastern China and Then it headed
out in the Pacific Ocean and likely hit some
bad storms out there and came down So but it
was well on its way around the world So those
are two flights that have been very recent and
you can actually search for that there is another
website That is dedicated to high altitude balloons
both the small pico balloons and the normal larger
weather balloons and that is tracker dot Hab
hub and I'll spell that out Hotel alpha Bravo
Hotel United Bravo dot org that one if you go
to that website you will see all the balloons
flying worldwide both northern and southern hemisphere
and it's fascinating website to watch as balloons
pop up from different places and you can follow
the the flights if it's just going up and then
comes right back down it's normally a regular
weather balloon flight but if it's a flat line
that in the Jet stream, then you'll know it's
a pico balloon most likely So those are my to
go to flight websites for watching balloon flights
and And so that's what I have the classrooms
that when I go into a classroom We we show them
those websites so they can track them on their
smartphones in real time The nice thing about
a PRS is you have ground stations worldwide So,
and they all link to the Google Maps so they
can track it. There is, however, something you
had to consider when you fly an APRS balloon
worldwide. The frequency we use here in the United
States for our national APRS network is 144 .390
megahertz. That's not the case worldwide. Europe
is 144 .800. China is 144 .64 and Japan is 144
.66 and there's a few other frequencies. So what
I have to do is design an algorithm in my code
and by the way the processor I use is the same
that's used on the original Arduino boards for
those of you who have programmed an Arduino.
It's all written in C using the Arduino developing
system IDE. And so I wrote a, a friend of mine
wrote a geofencing program that I incorporated
in that. MikeKD2EAT and AlanW7QO came up with
an integer -based version of a, of a geofencing
algorithm which, so we basically draw a box around
the The regions where we want the frequency to
shift to their national APRS network, and there's
also three At least three countries that you
have to you can't transmit over I'll give you
one of them Yemen See if you can figure out what
one of the other ones is I'm guessing North Korea.
That's right. We don't But believe it or not
Great Britain is one of the forbidden countries
because they do not allow airborne amateur radio
in the United Kingdom. And I don't know the reasoning
behind that, but they can't fly ham radio in
an airplane, a balloon or a kite, anything that
flies. So I have to draw a box around. United
Kingdom and make sure my transmitter goes off
when it goes across to the United Kingdom as
well. Very interesting well we are overdue for
a break here so we're going to take a break will
come back and talk to bill will give you a chance
to call in we've already got several tweets here
with some questions so we'll take care of. as
many of those as we can. Maybe we can pick up
here on some resources to fly these balloons
as well when we come back. So we'll be back with
Bill right after this word from Tower Electronics
right here on HamTalk Live. Thank you for a lovely
dinner. Aren't you going to ask me in to solder
some PL259s? Well, I do have some from Tower
Electronics. How can I refuse? Consider the sophisticated
quality of PL259s from Tower Electronics. From
soldering supplies to adapters, connectors to
cables, and all types of connectors, Tower Electronics
has the parts you're looking for. Well? Just
one more connector? You know I love your PL259s.
Then by all means, take some with you. Don't
be caught without PL259s. Visit Tower Electronics
at a ham fest near you. or visit them online
anytime at PL -259 .com or call 920 -435 -2973.
They also have hamsticks, mobile antennas, and
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call at 812 -NET -HAM -1. That's 812 -638 -4261.
Now, here's more HamTalk Live. Thanks to Scott
and Jill at Tower Electronics for bringing you
HamTalk Live. Been seeing pictures of Scott running
around Disney World down there. He's down there
ready for Fort Myers, Florida on January 18th
and 19th. He'll be at the HamFest there. And
then I believe Jill will be over at St. Charles,
Illinois on January 19th. And then January 26th,
Collinsville, Illinois and Arcadia, Florida.
but you can visit them anytime at PL -259 .com.
Well, HamTalk Live is on the air every Thursday
night at 9 p .m. Eastern Time right here at HamTalkLive
.com. Be sure to check us out on Facebook, Twitter,
and Instagram, and it's time for your phone calls
now. So if you have a question for Bill, call
920 -650. Now that's a different phone number
than usual. It's just for tonight. 812 -650 -9556.
We'll be back to our usual 812 Net Ham 1 number
next week. But you can tweet us. We've got several
tweets lined up here that we'll get to here momentarily.
And if you're listening to the rebroadcast on
WTWW or on one of the podcast apps, uh, you're
not going to get anybody if you call in. So,
uh, this show has already happened and it's already
in the past. So, uh, you'll have to listen to
ham talk live .com if you want to. call in live.
So nobody's home if you're calling the phone
number not on Thursday night here while we're
live on the show. So let me bring Bill back in
here and we've got several questions but one
thing we wanted to get to before the break was
some resources, you know, what exactly are you
going to need if you want to fly one of these
balloons besides just your plain old party balloon?
Well, you could make your own payload up using
like an Arduino mini board. You can get a U -blox
board from UPU Tronics in Great Britain. But
you'd have to come up with a little transmitter
board as well. I went ahead and developed it
as an all -in -one package, ready to fly, and
so if anybody's interested, then I make these
available to those who want to fly PicoBallons
without having to design their own. You can email
me at whiskeybravo8eco, that's wb8elk at gmail
.com, and I'll give you the particulars on that.
As far as other resources go, the Mylar balloons,
you have to buy a Qualitex brand. BalloonsDirect
or BalloonsFast .com, you want to search for
a 36 inch round silver Mylar balloon. Helium,
I use those party time tanks, balloon time tanks
you can get at the dollar store or Walmart. but
keep in mind if you do so they're 80 % pure helium
so you will fly a couple thousand feet lower
than if you used pure helium and you can actually
fly hydrogen in these and you'll go about 3 ,000
feet higher and they will last longer. I actually
am able to get a small tank of helium or hydrogen
about a 40 cubic foot tank cost about 20 or 30
dollars from a welding supply store and They're
very lightweight single person can carry them
around you want to have a way of regulating that
with a party balloon filler and a hose and To
fill up your party balloon, however, and then
the scientific balloon solutions calm is another
resource for the larger balloons And but they're
a lot more expensive than three dollars piece
for the mylar balloons Other resources like say
the You could go into a grocery store or a dollar
general store and you could have them fill up
your mylar party balloon and I think my local
store here would do it for a dollar or two and
That's usually pure helium or good quality helium
at these stores Some aren't some are, but I know
the one here turned out to be about 99 % pure.
And that's one way of doing it. Cause these balloons
are small enough to carry in a car. Um, don't
carry them in your car. If you're running hydrogen,
however, yeah, that may be a, that may be, but
I, I use fishing line, uh, for the, uh, support
mechanism to, to attach it to the balloon. And,
uh, and I use, uh, Kaptone tape, that's a great
tape to use because it handles the environment
very well. And I put all the string and everything
into the packages I mail out and then all you
have to do is buy a $3 balloon and find heliums
from somewhere and that's what I would recommend.
Uh, there are online resources that tell you
where your building is going to fly. There's
a, uh, Noah high split it's H Y S P L I T and
they have a trajectory program that will estimate
where you're building will fly. Uh, so you get
an idea of what the jet stream is doing. All
right. Uh, we've got a call here and we've got
several. tweets and stuff. So I just want to
let him know we're here. You got anything else
you need to throw in on that list real quick?
No, I'll stand by for the call. Okay, let's take
our live caller here since we've got the new
phone system. We're testing it out. I told Bill
he's going to be the guinea pig tonight. So who
do we have on the phone line here? This is Mark,
N4BCD Neil. Hi, Mark. Good to hear from you down
in Huntsville. What's going on tonight? Well,
I just wanted to wish you and Bill a happy new
year. Uh, Bill, it's, uh, I knew you were going
to be on the program. I keep track of these things,
but, uh, you know, I've been fortunate to, uh,
Bill's a local ham here in the Huntsville area
and I've known him for a number of years. I've
seen his program here in Huntsville and in Dayton.
Uh, Bill, could you describe to the listeners?
The weight lift testing you do prior to a launch
to ensure that these mylar balloons successfully
reach altitude and not go too high and not sink
That's an excellent question mark and by the
way mark and I share a last name, but we're not
related the way I test them is through a lot
of trial and error and Dumping a lot of these
in the Atlantic Ocean and scattered across the
southeast. I've done about 50 test flights I've
optimized the lift to anywhere between two and
a half grams to four grams on the neck of the
balloon. That's positive lift above the weight
of your payload. And the way I test that is a
nickel weighs five grams and a penny weighs two
and a half grams. So if it just barely lifts
a penny and nickel causes it to go down, then
I know I'm near the right lift. But I usually
create a little baggie with a clip with the right
amount of weight, which is the payload weight
plus three grams. Three grams is optimum. And
I attach that to the neck of the balloon. And
when that is neutrally buoyant, it's not going
up or down with that baggie attached, I know
I've got the weight of the payload plus three
grams. And I found that is the optimum lift to
prevent it from bursting when it goes to altitude
and to allow it to float instead. That's a great
question, Mark. That's a great thing to see in
person, guys. Bill, are you going to Dayton again?
Oh, yes. We're going to have a balloon sat forum
on Friday, and we're going to have a pico balloon
race with three pico balloons. So all are welcome
if you can attend the Dayton convention. I can
attest to your listeners, too. It's well worth
seeing because Bill's on a really excellent topic
here. And I can't imagine anybody that knows
more about the subject. And looking forward to
seeing you up there, Bill. And Neil, thanks for
having me on the show tonight. We'll talk soon
about the Huntsville Handfest, OK? All right,
Mark. Thanks for calling in. Appreciate it. And
73. OK. Happy new year. Bye. Bye. All right.
Happy new year eight one two six five zero nine
five five six is tonight's phone number It's
not our usual one, but we've got that. Let's
start knocking out some of these messages here
first of all Hank is on Spreaker w4htb says how
many trackers do you think have been launched
to date and When are you going to produce a YouTube
video instruction? That's a good question. As
far as pico balloons launch, there's probably
been, I would guess, over a hundred of them worldwide
by different people. So I've personally done
about 40 launches myself of pico balloons, and
I'm working on that YouTube video, instructional
video. All right, very good. Well, let's see
here. I'll make sure everything's working here.
Blake in for BWR wants to know what's the ascent
rate on a Mylar Pico balloon with the Sky Tracker?
Good question. To achieve success you want to
be right around one meter per second or less
ascent rate. If you're under a meter per second
which is approximately 200 feet per minute or
less, then you are likely to have success at
floating a Pico balloon. If you go much over
that, the balloon will likely over pressure and
pop when it gets to altitude because you'll have
a little bit too much excess gas in it and that
will pop the seams or cause it to burst. But
that's a good question. All right, let me...
Get to another question here KC 5 FM says is
it helium hard to get is it expensive? I think
you answered some of that, but we can we can
address that real quickly Yes depends where you
get it from the major companies are sometimes
restrict helium sales to existing customers or
large customers and they won't even sell it to
private individuals or they will jack the rate
of the cost of the helium tank to $150, $200
or more. Right now I think it's right around
$150 for a large tank and like I say I get the
smaller tanks for about $20 or $30 which A 40
cubic foot tank is all you need to do a number
of these Pico balloon flights and once again
it's very easy to lift by one person. It's not
so hard to get in small quantities, but the larger
tanks are harder to get. A lot of amateur radio
balloon groups are going to hydrogen because
a big tank of hydrogen are $55 or less. And as
long as you follow precautions not to create
sparks, it's perfectly safe. All right. And then,
um, Josh, W3ARD, who was on our balloon show
a few weeks ago, has a couple of questions here.
Are there any issues with a U .S. issued ham
radio license IDing all over the globe? Do you
have to have a different license? And then we'll
follow up with another one here. It depends on
the countries you're flying over. We have reciprocal
agreements with many European nations. But if
there is a question, that's where the geofencing
algorithm can come in to eliminate transmissions
above that country. I haven't had any issues
or complaints with flights that we've done, but
generally it hasn't been an issue to date. Okay,
and then Josh's other question, any issues with
uncontrolled balloons drifting over non -friendly
countries like Libya or North Korea? Once again,
when I'm over an unfriendly country such as that,
I do not transmit, and the chances of them actually
detecting that balloon are probably pretty slim.
Most radar systems filter out anything that's
slow moving. or not behaving like an aircraft.
So although some of these pico balloons in the
jet stream I have seen observed going 200 miles
per hour just floating along the jet stream.
Next question is from Jim K5ND from K2BSA. We
plan to work with Bill to launch three Pico balloons
at the World Scout Jamboree in West Virginia
in July and it'll have APRS and Whisper and he
wants to know if you could talk a little bit
about Whisper. Yes, I have a version that transmits
on the Whisper mode and instead of guitar string
for the antenna wires, which is what I use for
the two meter version, I use 36 gauge magnet
wire and fishing line. And it's 17 feet one inch
up and 17 feet inch down. So it's a little trickier
to launch But the advantage is on whisper mode
you can send a very low power transmitter and
be received worldwide And it has a distributed
network of ground stations that filter into whisper
net org So I've actually had a balloon over the
middle of the Atlantic And the telemetry was
received on the opposite side of the world in
Perth, Australia, with 25 milliwatts of power.
That's the beauty of whisper mode. However, whisper
has a drawback in that you can't, it's very limited
in the amount of telemetry information you can
send. It's basically a call sign, four -digit
grid, and a power level. So I send two transmissions
one has the call sign and the grid square and
I use the power level for a coarse altitude Then
I send a second transmission that begins with
a zero one or Q which are invalid call signs
But since it's right after my transmission on
the same frequency, it's technically IDing every
ten minutes. So I embed the telemetry in that
call sign and And that includes the fifth and
sixth digit grid square. And then a fine altitude
for the power level. And that way, I have a Python
script that grabs both frames from WhisperNet's
WhisperNet .org's database, converts it to APRS,
sends it to an APRS server, and it shows up.
If you ever see an APRS balloon over the middle
of the Pacific or the Atlantic, That's how it's
being done. It's a little Python script is grabbing
the whisper data. We just had one that the balloon
failed. It was launched from a high school in
San Diego, W6SUN -5. And you'll still see it
if you look for Whiskey Six Sun -5. It was laying
in the Mojave Desert. The wires were on the ground
in the sand. it was being received every day
from a thousand miles away in Texas and Oregon
and San Francisco and Telling us within a three
by five mile range where it was Several expeditions
went in in the sand to try and find it and finally
mark W6 MAF Drove his Jeep until he got a very
strong 20 meter signal saw the balloon Started
reeling in the magnet wire And too much to his
horror, he discovered that the payload was sitting
underneath his tire. Oh no. But fortunately it
was just on the solar panel. So he just slightly
damaged the solar panel. If he'd been over six
inches, you would have completely destroyed the
tracker. But he said the signal was very, very
strong at that point. I imagine so. Oh my goodness.
So he found a very small needle in a very large
haystack in the Mojave Desert. Oh my. Well we've
got a couple more here from LloydKC5FM and I
think you answered the first one already about
how heavy the Pico balloon load can be. He says,
regarding payload retrieval, what's your record
distance for the return and how many missions
get retrieved and how many are lost in the haystack?
Well, I have one that's sitting in a tree in
the Ivory Coast of Africa. If you want to go
out after it, I'll give you the coordinates.
It was knocked down by a thunderstorm after going
around six and a half times around the world.
We had one. that landed in a cornfield in Illinois
and Mark KA9SZX went out and he de -F'd it with
signal strength because he didn't have an APRS
receiver and he was able to find it out in the
middle of a field and that was launched from
well that was launched in that area but the farthest
I'll tell you a story about a latex floater.
You can float a latex weather balloon as long
as your payload is under two and a half pounds
and you go up under 200 feet per minute. It will
float for about 50 hours or so or less. Then
finally the UV degrades the latex rubber. But
K6 RPT launched one from San Francisco, San Jose,
stayed up 50 hours. It landed in Morocco. He
a friend of his who lived in Casablanca drove
out there with two of his friends that could
speak the language They asked the date farm near
where they saw the last reading if they'd anybody
had seen it they did they found two date farm
workers that had found it and they spent a Couple
hours negotiating a price to get it back because
in that country possession is 100 % of ownership
But they were able to negotiate a fee and they
got the payload back after flying from San Francisco
area to Morocco Very interesting Well, it looks
like we are just a little over time actually
So we probably should wrap things up here bill,
but if you have any last comments and website
where people can check out some of your stuff.
Why don't we do that and then we're gonna close
it down for tonight. Yes, you can contact me
and I can send you some links for pico ballooning
and regular ballooning and send out some information
and resources. My email is Whiskey Bravo 8 Echo
Lima Kilo. That's WB8ELK. at gmail .com or you
can look at my website on wv8elk .com and thank
you for having me tonight. Well, thank you for
coming on and giving us some more information
about these Pico balloons. That's one of the
newer things happening with the balloon flight,
so it was good to hear about that. That is a
wrap for this week's edition of HamTalk Live.
Thanks to my guest Bill Brown WB8ELK and everybody
out there in cyberspace for listening and calling
in and invite you back next Thursday night and
we'll be back at our regular phone number at
9 p .m. Eastern Time when Victor and Dorsoff
VA2WA, Randy Thompson K5ZD and Bruce Horn WA7B
&M will be here to talk about live online contest
scoring and for a list of all of our upcoming
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for getting that set up. So for now, this is
Neil Rapp, WB9VPG, saying seven three, seven
five. And may the good DX be yours!