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Alabama Amateur Technology |
Balloon chasing season seems to have come to and end for the year, but we had one last adventure that took us to North Georgia on 15-NOV-03.
Two balloons were launched from University of Alabama Huntsville (UAH) on Saturday, 15-NOV-03, at the NSSTC building. These balloons carried several experiments for the student at UAH. They also carried 2-meter transmitters equipped with APRS (Automatic Position Reporting System) equipment to let the chase team know where the balloon is located throughout its path. Bill Brown, WB8ELK, had another low power 2-meter transmitter attached to each balloon. One had a voice ID and the other had a CW ID. These could be heard very easily heard for hundreds of miles.
Each of the 2 balloons reached an altitude of 109,286 ft and 110,124 ft respectively and they moved as fast as 108 mph when they hit the jet stream. No wonder we could not keep up with them. This time of the years the winds are a little different from what we experienced in the past few balloon chases.
The APRS beacons from the 2 balloons were confirmed to have been heard in the following 12 states: AL, AR, FL, GA, IN, KY, MO, MS, NC, OH, SC, TN
The callsigns used on the balloons were KI4CPA and KI4CLR. We expected them to land in the same general vicinity, but that would change as the second balloon was ascending very slowly compared to the first. This only meant that it would travel father to the East and this could be trouble for the chase teams as it landed in the Cohutta Wilderness area near the Georgia state line.
The first balloon landed near Dalton, GA as predicted. It was recovered from a tree near a strip mall. The second balloon headed for the mountains and we lost the signal as the terrain blocked it. I looked on my APRS map and seen an APRS station on the mountain close to the balloon and then it made a direct path towards the balloon. Great! We have another balloon chaser looking for the payload. We stopped to eat since it was after 3:00pm and nobody had eaten lunch yet.
The signal from the balloon had stopped, so we had no final coordinates from the packages. The only signal we had at that point was the 30mW voice ID beacon, so now we were on a Fox Hunt with handheld beams to pinpoint the signal. We took several measurements to triangulate the source of the signal. Then, I got a message back from another APRS station with a phone number to call N4NEQ on the phone. Cell phone coverage was not good in the area so it took a while. We got the last set of APRS coordinates from N4NEQ and proceeded to head in that general direction. We hit a dirt road that took us into the Cohutta Wilderness Area and it got rough. We got on Hells Hollow Road and quickly decided it was named appropriately, because we had to turn back at the first deep creek crossing following by a steep hill on the other side. Our team met up with WB8ELK on the other side of the mountain, as we got closer to the source of the beacon. Unfortunately, it was dark and the search could not be completed.
It was a long ride back to Huntsville from Copperhill. Another search team from North Georgia recovered the payload a few days later and shipped it back to UAH.
The chase teams consisted of KI4CLR, KI4CPA, KD4TFN, N4TXI, W4JXP, KG4UWE, WB8ELK, N8DEU, and others.
The following is a note from Bill Brown:
Sunday, Ralph Fowler N4NEQ and his son and Eddie Foust WD4JEM came up from Atlanta and Dave Hoffman KE4FGW drove down from Knoxville to attempt a recovery... they got within a quarter mile of the payload scrambling up a 45 degree incline in the rain... nothing like wet leaves on a steep mountain. The tracking beacon was still operating as of 9 pm Sunday night.
Monday, Eddie WD4JEM and John Mullinix KF4SKT drove back to the area and Eddie walked up the dirt trail that went past the trailers at the end of Shady Grove Road. He walked clear up to the top of Granny Marr Mountain and started back to the closest point where the GPS said the payload was about 0.05 miles away... he managed to glimpse a hint of orange just below him. After walking about 200 feet down a steep incline he found the payload on the ground near a big rock... the parachute and tracking beacon were laying on the ground (the balsa wood antenna support was broken in two places)... the primary student payload packet antenna had impaled itself into the ground and was bent over about 90 degrees but not broken off and the payload looks to be in good shape.
He got back to the trail just after sunset…
73’s de Tim – N8DEU