Good evening!
The Richardson Area Balloonatics / Richardson Wireless Klub will be launching a high-altitude weather balloon this coming Saturday, weather and upper atmosphere conditions permitting. The launch will be from Aubrey (details below), just north of the DFW metroplex, but near apogee at 100,000ft we expect coverage to include most of Texas and Oklahoma, with some Arkansas and Louisiana coverage as well. The flight is expected to last around 2.5 hours (9:00AM to ~11:00AM ascent, and on the ground by noon).
We will have a special event QSL card if you receive images/tracking data from the balloon or make contact through the DMR repeater. See (and the form at the bottom) to submit for a QSL card or Worked All Payloads ("WAP") award.
Ways to participate from afar:
* Track the payloads at (look for K5RWK and KE5GDB)
* Receive SSTV pictures in real-time - 432.5 MHz / Robot 36
* Make contacts through the DMR repeater - 441.0 MHz / CC1 / TS1 / TG99 / Simplex
* Listen to the KD5OUG Digi-talker on 146.52 MHz
* Decode our tracking payloads - "Horus Binary v2" on 432.7 MHz and 432.8 MHz (decode using upper sideband and Horus GUI or ), K5UTD on 20m WSPR
* Watch live images stream in via Wenet at
Participate in person:
* Launch site will be the Greenbelt / 428 Park in Aubrey TX ()
* Launch prep begins at 8:00AM with a target launch time of 9:00AM
* If chasing, please carpool -- we've had congestion issues before
* Chase simplex is on 146.54MHz -- please bring at least an HT that can talk on 146.54 if chasing
In addition to the radio payloads, we'll have a few 360¡ã cameras onboard to record the flight.
Currently the weather forecast and expected trajectory are favorable for a launch on Saturday. I'll be sending more details regularly to
[email protected] and
[email protected] and a final update on Friday to this group.
We hope to see you at the launch or hear you on the repeater!
(Please forward this to any other interested clubs/groups/parties)
73 de KE5GDB
Rick WA2HRF Fell