[SARC] Fw: SOB V Launch - Sep 6, 7AM - GREEN and GO!

[Pat Henagan]

For those of you that are interested this could be a good exercise using our "tape measure antennas" to track this balloon launch and it could land in your back yard.  Any one interested email me back and we will try to get together.

Pat, KG4LNX

Sent: Tuesday, September 02, 2008 5:37 PM
Subject: SOB V Launch - Sep 6, 7AM - GREEN and GO!


At T-minus 6 days, everything is GREEN and GO for launch - weather is presently the biggest concern.  

I hope everyone made it through the storm without damage. 


Here's the flight details:



Mission designator: SOB V (so-bee five)



Launch date: Saturday, August 30th 



Launch time: 7:00 AM (CDT) plus or minus a few minutes depending on how long inflation takes



Launch location: Home QHT of KV4AC



Mission profile: free flight to burst altitude (approx 100,000 ft) return to Earth on parachute



Typical flight profile: ascent rate approx 1,000 ft/min - 90 - 100 minutes up, 30 or so minutes down



Payload details: (primary payload) styrofoam box containing 16V Li-Ion battery pack, motorola GPS, Mim module (TNC), and Yaesu VX-R1 radio (VHF)



Payload details: (backup beacon) styrofoam box containing 9V lithium battery, Mim module (CW encoder), and Alinco credit card radio (UHF)



Frequencies: (VHF APRS) 146.475 Mhz - APRS packet every 30 seconds, Telemetery packet with battery voltage data every 60 seconds.



Frequencies: (UHF CW Beacon) 446.375 Mhz - CW ID -  W4SPA BEACON - every 60 seconds - there may also be a simplex repeater operating on this beacon - I'd like to request exclusive use for communications between the launch team members and the down-range teams.  If time permits, I may ask for general check-in's here during the flight.



Frequencies: (HF Comm) 3.965 Mhz - LSB plus or minus depending on traffic



What we need:  trackers, trackers, trackers...  fixed, mobile, portable, whatever.  The more ears we have listening for it, the better chance we'll have of finding it after it lands.  The ideal mobile tracker setup would be able to track APRS and have mobile HF capability but I don't want to discourage anyone...  everyone's welcome to assist.  We will run some flight path prediction software that will predict the flight path and the landing location based on national weather service winds aloft data on Friday evening, Aug 29.  I will forward this information to you Friday evening and hopefully you'll be able to dissemenate it to the interested folks in your group.  Based on this data, we'll determine the best locations for the down-range tracking teams (this information will also be included in the Friday evening e-mail.  Hopefully, we'll get a fairly accurate GPS/APRS fix on the payload as it descends but if not, we may need to resort to radio direction finding using either the 2 meter APRS packets or the 70cm CW beacon signal.



On behalf of the entire SOB team, our sincere thanks for anyone who wants to help out.



73,



Scott Poole, W4SPA

Montgomery, AL





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