Kyle Marek-Spartz

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Sun, 11 Jul 2010 00:18:00 -0700

The rain is refreshing.

Winona Field Day

Fri, 02 Jul 2010 04:32:00 -0700

This years Field Day in Winona with the Winona Area Radio Club (WØNE) was an interesting one.

The plan was this:

Have a display table set up with electronics and pictures to share, a small (3 ft. diameter) balloon on a tether with real time weather data being relayed, and then later in the day have a balloon launch that was supposed to land near Galesville, WI (30 miles East from Winona).

What happened was this:

Due to taking the train to Winona, I was unable to take helium with me, so I planned to fill up two balloons at Hyvee, a grocery store. Due to a combination of lower grade helium than what I was basing my balloon lift calculations and an inflator who was unfamiliar with how large the balloons should be, the balloons may not have had enough helium in them.

Through out the day, one of the balloons popped (About 3:30 pm) due to winds pushing the tether low to the ground. Grass did it in. The thought was no big deal since there was still a spare. However when it came time for launch at 5pm, the balloon would not lift it off the ground. I then went back to Hyvee and filled two more balloons. After adding this additional lift, the balloons lifted just fine and we cut the tether around 6 pm and sent the AnaSonde 3-M up. ( http://www.anasphere.com/multipurpose_radiosonde.php )

We were able to listen to its transmissions on the radio for a good while from the launch site. My sister, cousin, and I packed up and drove towards Galesville, WI. Along the way we stopped at various points attempting to visually see the balloon or to hear it on the radio. We did not hear or see anything significant, however, this wasn't any worse than my past experiences with these packages.

That night I was at the Field Day site through a reasonable storm. There was a gust of wind that knocked down a few antennas, and was causing the rain to go sideways. I was outside for about 15 seconds and my clothes were soaked head to toe.

I got a call the next morning about the balloon but I was at home where I had no cell signal, so the call didn't show up in my missed call. The voice mail message did not have a phone number to call back, nor did my voice mail system tell me the number. I spent some time on the phone with my cell phone provider trying to figure it out, but they were unable to help. The message said that they were located in "Herndon, the Mandata area" which did not mean much to me. I looked online for both and found a Herndon in Virginia and Pennsylvania, as well as a Mandata in the UK and one right near the Herndon in Pennsylvania. So I began to think it was there, but these balloons and packages typically only go ~30 miles (depending on wind conditions), so it seemed unlikely.

Well, thankfully I got another call on Tuesday and was able to get ahold of someone this time. It was for sure in Herndon, Pennsylvania. It had arrived in the "recipient's" backyard approximately 11 am Eastern time (10 am Central). When they had left for church it was not there, and when they came back it was. The distance between the launch site and Herndon as the crow flies is around 780 miles. This put the flight time at 16 hours. From there I calculated an average speed of 48.75 mph.

My speculation was that with three balloons on the flight it would rise fast until the most inflated balloon popped, and then it would still rise until the second most inflated balloon popped. However, at that point, the third balloon would not have enough lift to reach an altitude where it would pop and then it would begin a slow descent. I thought that the balloon which was filled in the morning would be at the landing site. Well, a balloon filled later in the day was at the landing site, but the rest of the theory still stands as an explanation. We happened to be at the right altitude with these balloons to have strong winds. At higher altitudes the horizontal movement of our balloons taper off, as there is less wind. These factors together caused the flight to be much longer than expected.

One thing to keep in mind is the AnaSondes are designed to be "disposable." We don't get calls back on them often, so we were extremely lucky to have it set somewhat of a distance record for our team, and to have it recovered. Thanks to all who helped, from my co-workers, my family who came to support us, WARC, SARA for hosting the rest of the team, and most of all, Mike and Jill Reed of Herndon, PA. We are working on getting the package shipped back.

Thanks to Dave, KB9EWG for filming my (rather unrehearsed) explanations of the various things that we do on the ballooning team. You can watch that video on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I4GwirAR3_E

For the Pennsylvanians: Here is Winona, MN on a map: http://maps.google.com/maps?q=Winona+MN

For the Minnesotans: Here is Herndon, PA on a map: http://maps.google.com/maps?q=Herndon+PA

Chatting with the family

Well, that won't work well, will it?

That's much better lift... Too much? Nah.

Ascending nicely...

The family harvesting cataracts from glaring into the sun

Lance, KBØYJU, not realizing the antenna behind him will fall in the middle of the night on our watch

Making some QSOs

Thanks to all, again. It really was a fun weekend!

73 - KDØGTK

Kyle Marek-Spartz

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Winona Field Day

Balloon Class makes the MN Daily!

Minnesota Creative Labs update... and Google Wave

Minnesota Creative Labs and news on the Balloon

Some photos from launch day

Construction and Painting

Yellow Cake

Team icarus update

Concept Design Review

More Progress on Balloon Project

Errands

Packages

Weather

Padelford

Room Organization

Spaceflight with Balloons - Team Icarus

Gopher Way