[aprssig] NSTAR Flight 08-B - Saturday, May 17th

[Mark Conner]

Nebraska Stratospheric Amateur Radio (NSTAR) Flight 08-B is scheduled for Saturday, May 17th, at 0800 CDT (1300 UTC).  Launch site will be the parking lot of Treynor High School in Treynor, IA.

A unique feature of this flight will be an attempt to complete a voice Earth-Balloon-Balloon-Earth (EBBE) QSO.  The NSTAR balloon will have a voice simplex repeater on 446.30 MHz.  Another balloon, Near Space Sciences, will launch from Baraboo WI at 0900 CDT with a cross-band repeater on 446.30 MHz/144.325 MHz.  Users near the NSTAR end (western Iowa/Nebraska/Kansas) should use the 446.30 uplink, while users near the NSS end (eastern Iowa/Wisconsin/Illinois/Indiana/Michigan) should use 144.325 MHz.  Please allow time between transmissions for the simplex repeater to record and then retransmit your QSO and keep your transmission short (10 sec or so).  If all goes well, QSOs from central Nebraska to possibly as far as the Dayton Hamvention may be possible.

APRS will be on 144.36 MHz with callsign N9XTN-11 and on 144.39 MHz with callsign N9XTN-12.  

Due to the wind forecast, NSTAR will arrive and prepare for an 0800 CDT launch time.  If the surface winds are quiet, we will hold our launch as close as possible to 0900 CDT to match up with the fixed NSS launch time.  If the wind begins to come up, we will launch prior to 0900.  Total flight time will be about two hours, with a maximum expected altitude for NSTAR of 95,000 ft.

The high school is easy to find and is well-marked from Hwy 92 going through Treynor.  Go south at the sign for the high school and the parking lot is on the south side of the school building.  We will be monitoring the SW Iowa ARC repeater in Council Bluffs on 146.82- and 446.30 simplex at the launch site for talk-in.

Anyone planning to help with the launch should plan to arrive by 0715 CDT.  For those new to balloon chasing, the only necessary equipment is an HT capable of using 446.30 MHz.  APRS in the car is helpful but not necessary.

The latest forecast is for a track direction of 145 degrees and a distance of 63 miles.  This puts the landing about 10 miles northwest of Maryville MO.  The track forecasts still have some uncertainty to them but the area betweee Clarinda IA and Maryville MO looks most likely for our landing zone.  NSTAR will probably chase south on US59 to IA-2, east to Clarinda, and then south on US 71.

E-mail me if you have any questions.  Last-minute information may be found at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/KNSP/messages .  A comprehensive list of upcoming flights is at http://www.arhab.org .

73 de Mark N9XTN