ARLA/CLUSTER: Amateur balloon circumnavigates northern hemisphere

[João Costa > CT1FBF]

Leo Bodnar, M0XER launched a homemade balloon with a 12g solar powered
radio tracker on the 12th of July from near Silverstone in the UK.

It has spent the last 400+ hours circumnavigating the northern
hemisphere covering over 25,000km over some of the most remote terrain
in the planet.

Using the amateur radio APRS network and our UKHAS network we have
tracked its location over Europe, Siberia, a brief sojourn across
North Korea before heading out over Japan. From here it briefly
entered the States before swinging north into Canada.

It was heard last night in Greenland by OX3XR who recorded the
transmission (Which was subsequently played back by DL7AD). The
current predictions have it returning to the UK early tomorrow/Friday.
http://habitat.habhub.org/mobile-tracker/?filter=B-64

Leo has utilised some clever techniques storing positions so when its
back in radio contact it transmits a log file of previous locations in
the comments field of the APRS meaning we can recreate where it’s
been, hence the fairly unbroken path (it only stores 5 days worth so
where you get a line it had been out of contact).

Anyway it’s a fairly amazing thing he’s done and we are ready to
welcome it home. To confirm it’s not just a one off there is a second
balloon which is about 12 hours behind it (having taken a much more
tortuous path doing loop the loops over Siberia and going to very far
reaches of Canada )
http://habitat.habhub.org/mobile-tracker/?filter=B-63

Both together :
http://habitat.habhub.org/mobile-tracker/?filter=B-63;B-64

If it does reappear B-64 will be transmitting Contestia on 434.500Mhz
whilst over the UK/Europe. We welcome listeners in Southern England to
have a listen out for it. There is a guide here :
http://ukhas.org.uk/guides:tracking_guide