ARLA/CLUSTER: Transatlantic Ham Radio balloon attempt

[João Costa > CT1FBF]

Transatlantic Ham Radio balloon attempt

Jim N2NXZ has launched a 1600g Hwoyee carrying amateur radio HF, VHF
and UHF payloads from Rochester NY at 21:28 UT on Tuesday, December 3,
in an attempt to cross the Atlantic

Anthony M0UPU and Jim N2NXZ have supplied the following information:

The balloon will be using a small tube in the bottom to prevent burst
at sunrise.

Balloon will be carrying two UKHAS format 70cms telemetry transmitters
as follows :

$$$$$N2NXZ-1 434.550 MHz 50 Baud RTTY 7N2 500 shift
$$$$$N2NXZ-2 434.445 MHz 50 Baud RTTY 7N2 500 shift

Both are continuous TX.

These are not equipped with TCXO's so this frequency may be +/- some
arbitrary amount. In addition, N2NXZ-2 is equipped with a Euro/Azores
frequency (144.800 MHz) APRS transmitter which will transmit below 300
meters and then is geofenced so it won't transmit until ~ 400km from
Azores, or > -15 longitude subject to normal euro legislation
geofencing, call sign will be N2NXZ-12 with country prefix in comments
i.e CU/N2NXZ-12.

Finally there will be a 50mW 10 meter CW beacon on 28.219 MHz which is
transmitting N2NXZ/BLN/6 and repeats every 10 seconds @ 10 wpm.

The current winds are taking it down towards Southern Spain, most
likely in range of the Azores : http://nstar.org/GFS/10mb/10mb.048.png
but this is subject change. Once its launched hopefully we should get
an idea of its velocity and be able to make some guesses as to when it
should appear.

We welcome listeners as always live chat here:
http://webchat.freenode.net/?channels=highaltitude

APRS track, try N2NXZ-11 or N2NXZ-12
http://aprs.fi/

Live Balloon Tracking
http://spacenear.us/tracker/

Beginners Guide to Tracking using dl-fldigi
http://ukhas.org.uk/guides:tracking_guide

To get up-to-date information on balloon flights subscribe to the
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ukhas+subscribe  googlegroups.com