[aprssig] updated forecast for CNSP-18

[Steve Noskowicz]

Hi Mark,  FYI
 
  Looking at the stations Near in Findu, the station gating it is about 480 miles distant which is right on the diffraction corrected radio horizon calculation.
 
Good luck and we can't be too sad.  Gotta wait for the pickup in the morning.
 
Thanks for the winds link.

73, Steve, K9DCI USN (Vet) MOT (Ret) Ham (Yet)

--- On Mon, 12/3/12, Mark Conner <mconner1 at gmail.com> wrote:


I'm not sure what to say about this.  All of the wind forecasts show that the balloon should be on a course of 080 but instead it's turning ESE and slowing down.  The balloon hasn't really descended tonight either.




Right now CNSP-18 is about 1000 miles from the Azores, moving at 135 miles per hour and on a course to pass over or just north of the center of the island group.  It should be in range of the Azores stations (if tuned to 144.39) around 07-08 UTC.  My concern is that it will continue to slow down and turn more to the south tomorrow, possibly too much for it to reach the coast of Portugal or Morocco before the batteries die.  At this point I don't think it'll be possible for it to turn back to the northeast and reach France or the UK, but stranger things have happened.


Hopefully some Azores stations can be contacted tomorrow morning (their time) and we'll get updates from there.  Perhaps some have been alerted already.  I think we'll need Portuguese and Spanish stations as well.


Sorry to get everyone's hopes up farther north, it sure looked like we were on an express train to London for a while.


You can take a look at the wind charts I've been using at http://nstar.org/GFS - select 10mb for winds at about 100,000 ft.


73 de Mark N9XTN

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.tapr.org/pipermail/aprssig_lists.tapr.org/attachments/20121203/f1f30aa9/attachment.html>