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Alabama Amateur Technology |
What’s happening in Amateur Radio? One does not need too look too far or listen very long before they hear of yet another balloon launch from NSSTC over at University of Alabama Huntsville (UAH). On November 1st 2003 students have launched 3 balloons since and many HAM’s assisted in recovering the balloons after they landed. The trick to knowing where they land is where APRS really shines.
A handheld, GPS, TNC or TinyTrak is all that it takes to transmit the location of the payload. When the balloon launches, the chase begins. As reported in an earlier article we actual saw a balloon land on one of my very first chases. Perhaps, it was beginners luck. In early November we chased a balloon that landed a short distance from Sharp’s Mountain just east of Madison County Lake. What a great time of the year to go chasing through the countryside as the fall colors were becoming very pronounced. We raced up route 65 and turned west on CR4 to be in place to watch another balloon landing. We were just on the other side of a hill waiting for it to appear when all of a sudden the balloon took a quick turn to the north on our APRS map. The winds generated by those hills sucked it right up toward the cove of two hills. If there were a public road to get there we would have recovered it, but we had to find how to cross the hill. We met several locals on CR4 and they were all probably talking about these strangers carrying antennas an handheld gizmos walking and driving all over the neighborhood. Everybody we met on the trip was friendly and helpful once we explained what we were doing. One family let us cross their land and we met some members of the Dry Creek Hunting Club who offered to take one of the students on a ATV up the hill. We equipped them with a handheld GPS to guide them to the target. They came back with reports of a very dense wooded area and we had to come up with another game plan. As darkness set, Bill Brown, WB8ELK picked up a telemetry signal of a second balloon (RadioSonde) that launched shortly after the student payload we were chasing. Bill talked us into the challenge of a Fox Hunt. So here we are walking down a country road looking for the unknown. We came upon a house and the signal was coming from the direction of the house. There was a sign posted on a tree in the driveway that read “No Trespassing”. These folks seem to mean business. By this time it is completely dark and we are standing on the road when this Jeep with 3 teenagers pulls up about 100 feet where we were standing. It was apparent they lived at this house and we probably startled them. As one of the crew walked toward the Jeep I heard the power door locks quickly engage. Oh boy, here we go now. They cracked the window to make conversation about what we were doing. After a few minutes they said it was OK to cross their property to take a look.
Bill walked around the house and it was time to remove the antenna on the HT and hold it close to the body and do some 360 degree turns to find the direction of the signal. We took a path behind the house and got real close to where the signal was coming from all directions. From out of the darkness one of the students yelled, “There it is up in the tree!” Up in the tree it was indeed, but most of us could not see it until a light was shined on the subject. Even then, I must admit I could not see it, but there it was up in a tree at least 60-70 feet. Gary, N4TXI, said he heard a noise like a buzzing sound in the darkness. Bill explained the payload had a pump running on it. The buzzing was off the path in the wooded area. Bingo! Gary found it lying on the ground. We thought for sure we would have to come back later to retrieve the payload.
The High School senior who lived at the house later said we looked pretty important carrying all those handheld gadgets. It was a long day. I bet the young man’s friends could not believe the reward Bill handed him at the end of the hunt. Since we lost the last beacon from the balloon payload we originally set out to recover, we were still not sure exactly where it landed because we could not hear the APSR beacon after it landed. Bill called some friends on the other side of the hill in the Sharp’s cove area to see if there was another way to get to the payload. On the way over, my laptop sounded a familiar sound “UPDATE!” I looked down at the display and we had just received a position report from the balloon payload. It appears those hills on the east side were Mother Natures RF choke, because we heard nothing from it on the CR4 side. This report gave us exactly what we needed to find the payload. Evidently, we found the right spot to get enough signal between the hills to get the information that was critical to the search.
The next day we set out on a hike. Some of Bill Brown’s contacts got us access to a gate to go 4-wheeling along some old trails and then on a hike for a couple of miles. We got within 0.3 miles of the payload, but darkness forced us to get out of the dense woods. We pushed the limit and ended up walking the last mile in complete darkness through a narrow trail. The wild life could be heard moving around us and we had no flashlight to see where in the world we were going.
The hike proved to be helpful as we discovered a very nice fire road to get closer to the balloon payload. The students went back a few days later and found the balloon, but they could not get it out of the tall trees. That is another project. How do you retrieve a six-pack cooler full of electronics dangling from a tall tree… What an adventure… Steve KD4TFN, Bob N4CCO, Robby KG4PLK, Gary N4TXI, Dick W1TV, Charles KG4UWE, John W4JXP, and Bill WB8ELK himself went on the chase. I apologize in advance if I missed any names. Check out the pictures. Our latest adventure took us to Dalton, GA and the Cohutta Wilderness area.
73’s,
Tim – N8DEU