My friend Tom W5KUB who lives in a suburb of Memphis, Tennessee attempted yet again to circumnavigate the world. Maybe as a kid you placed a postcard addressed to yourself on a balloon and never got a reply, or maybe you did. Did you try a note in a bottle? There's a yearning to reach out and discover.
Tom is one of those guys that deserves credit for his failure. Let's look at his success..? Tom attempted yet again to circle the world. He used a little better than a party balloon, and designed a tiny circuit card so hams around the world could track him.? The picture attached shows his payload and the "recovery team" a group of Polish hams who recovered it. See the attached picture..
Not to bore you, but Tom built a 1.5 gram payload. It flew at 40-44,000 feet using a 36 inch diameter balloon. It had 2 transmitters on board. 1 was HF for tracking over the oceans, and the other was VHF. A full description of his adventures can be found at:
Tom does much more, including a Tuesday evening video call in show- the link is
Reason I'm mentioning this is my Rochester NY buddies have assisted schools in their area to build and launch balloons as science projects too. My buddies in Maine will be talking to the International Space Station later this year.. Lot's going on in ham radio...
The HF antenna was 34 feet long and slightly bigger than a hair. Now Memphis to Poland is pretty impressive, there is a ham in England who has circumnavigated the globe multiple times..
Larry Macionski