On Jul 25, 2007, at 2:50 PM, Robert Bruninga wrote:
What a fun time had by all. More to come. Lots of photos... AND LESSONS LEARNED (again and again...)
Sorry for the brief foray into balloons instead of satellites, but perhaps others would find this interesting also... and since we're calling a balloon a "simulated satellite" now here on the AMSAT list... (GRIN)...
If you want to speed through the lessons, get in touch with these guys, Bob:
http://www.eoss.org - Edge of Space Sciences
They've flown more than 100 balloon flights, all different kinds of balloons and payloads, and really have it down to a science. They even have Rick N0KKZ who built custom flight prediction software for them using winds-aloft data, and he's RARELY off by very far on the actual touchdown zone these days. I won't embarass him further since I'll CC him on this reply, but seriously -- it's good stuff, from everything I've heard.
They also have some incredibly good/fast DF'ers amongst the group, guys who have been chasing balloons for close to 2 decades now. If some of those guys could be coaxed into writing some articles, the tidbits of information us other more "Amateur" DF'ers would/could learn would be incredible. Balloons around here regularly head off from the Front Range of Colorado into Eastern Kansas or Southeastern Nebraska, and these guys are always "right there" most of the time, ready to scoop up the payload and head back in.
I've been chasing down Aircraft ELT's for over ten years, and frankly, those guys in that group are another notch better than I am at DF'ing. They're really good.
Give 'em a shout and see if they have any of their presentations they've done over the years or other stuff they've only presented at their meetings here in Colorado available somewhere - or even pester Rick to put some more of that type of thing on their website. What's there is pretty incredible, but i always want MORE! (GRIN)
-- Nate Duehr, WY0X nate@natetech.com