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--></style></head><body lang="EN-US" link="blue" vlink="purple"><div class="WordSection1"><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color:#1f497d">We recovered it! Amazing. I was only peripherally involved and could not take over a student project from another school, and our students have been trying for weeks to buy a high altitude GPS, but with the Government Sequester we cannot spend a dime, and it takes WEEKS of paper processing through 10 different people even without the sequester!</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color:#1f497d"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color:#1f497d">Callsign was W3ADO-11 and chase vehicles were WB4APR-9 and USNA-2 near Lancaster PA.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color:#1f497d"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color:#1f497d">Anyway, it was their risk, not mine (though since they could not even buy their own tracker, I gave them one at the last minute (My risk$ was only for the low-altitude tracker)…</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color:#1f497d"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color:#1f497d">Actually the students did pretty well. I could not resist checking EVERY KNOT in the string, etc. that tied our balloon, to a string, to a chute, to a chute-ring, to their cooler-payload and then hung my coke bottle tracker below it all. The balloon filled without incident. The chain of stuff on the string was walked down towards the payload but when the guy let go of the string to then transfer the load to the chute. Up went the balloon!</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color:#1f497d"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color:#1f497d">My heart sank, since I had checked every single knot. What I did not check was the strong metal 2” diameter Key ring at the top of the chute. Three students were in charge of the chute which had flown several times before successfully. What I did not know was that no one checked the chute ring.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color:#1f497d"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color:#1f497d">Apparently in all past flights, the ring was tied through the chute to a big Styrofoam ball. The ball inside the chute was attached to the key ring above the chute and then to the balloon. Turns out, the students had seen a ball, but discarded it.. with the ball gone, the only thing holding the ring on the top of the chute was just a knot under a hole in the nylon! And a piece of duct tape on the top!!</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color:#1f497d"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color:#1f497d">Anyway, thank heavens for a spare balloon and spare tanks!</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color:#1f497d"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color:#1f497d">The GPS2 (OEM version) on the TT3 worked fine. Its last vertical altitude was 77,894 feet. Then there was no change in altitude or position for 20 minutes as it peaked, and burst and then we got it on the way down (8 miles away) at 73,930 feet. Track was great , but only to 67,959 where it stuck for 27 minutes! </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color:#1f497d"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color:#1f497d"> Oh, and the overall track was only about 12 miles or less, because winds were non existant and air temps were 98F and well over 105 with the humidity. The air was so thick you could cut it with a knife…</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color:#1f497d"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color:#1f497d">A big sigh of relief came out as it started tracking again at 9026 feet 6? miles away and in another 10 minutes one car was able to SEE the package land in a corn field. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color:#1f497d"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color:#1f497d"> The loud 80 dB squaker made it easy to find in the 10’ tall corn. The hard part was to get the army of eager students to STOP and LISTEN. Then we walked right to it.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color:#1f497d"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color:#1f497d">Photos someday.. !</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color:#1f497d"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color:#1f497d">Oh, My method of maintain temperature in the outside -65F is to simply put my APRS stuff in a clear plastic water bottle and let the sun keep it warm. The package is very light. And it floats, and it meets the density requirements for inadvertent impact.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color:#1f497d"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color:#1f497d">Their main payload (a small CUBESAT) used the classic method of placing it in a Styrofoam cooler with 6 hand warmers. When we recovered it, the cubesat was so hot the cooler had to be emptied and allowed to cool before one could even touch the cubesat with bare hands.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color:#1f497d"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color:#1f497d">But instead of my few party balloon flights, they had a 1500g balloon with 8 POUNDS of free lift! (That lifted a full Milk Jug as the test weight).</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color:#1f497d"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color:#1f497d">Bob, WB4APR</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color:#1f497d"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color:#1f497d"> </span></p>
<div><div style="border:none;border-top:solid #b5c4df 1.0pt;padding:3.0pt 0in 0in 0in"><p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Tahoma","sans-serif"">From:</span></b><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Tahoma","sans-serif""> Robert Bruninga [mailto:<a href="mailto:bruninga@usna.edu">bruninga@usna.edu</a>] <br>
<b>Sent:</b> Wednesday, July 17, 2013 6:57 PM<br><b>To:</b> <a href="mailto:aprssig@tapr.org">aprssig@tapr.org</a><br><b>Cc:</b> <a href="mailto:aprs@yahoogroups.com">aprs@yahoogroups.com</a>; <a href="mailto:wa3nan@lists.nasa.gov">wa3nan@lists.nasa.gov</a>; <a href="mailto:bruninga@usna.edu">bruninga@usna.edu</a><br>
<b>Subject:</b> Balloon Launch Thursday maybe 10 AM</span></p></div></div><p class="MsoNormal"> </p><p class="MsoNormal">Launch from Lancaster PA, mild winds.</p><p class="MsoNormal"> </p><p class="MsoNormal">Should go up to 100k feet and then come down not far from launch. Be heard across 15 states.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p><p class="MsoNormal">Though it is a non high altitude GPS and FIX will be stuck above 18k feet until it comes back down.</p><p class="MsoNormal"> </p><p class="MsoNormal">Callsign is W3ADO-11 and it will be on 144.39</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p><p class="MsoNormal">If anyone KNOWS that a Tinytrack3 and GPS2 from Byonics will *<b>not</b>* re-aquire when it comes back below 18k feet please let us know NOW.</p><p class="MsoNormal"> </p><p class="MsoNormal">
Thanks The rest of the payload costs $10,000 and we don’t want to lose it. It is a different schools project that noone else can access, so I wont bother with details.</p><p class="MsoNormal"> </p><p class="MsoNormal">Bob</p>
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