Cross-posting from the NTX email group…
Good evening!
[Please forward this to any other interested clubs/groups/parties]
https://www.k5rwk.org/2025/08/13/rwk-balloon-launch-announcement-august-23rd/
The Richardson Area Balloonatics / Richardson Wireless Klub will be launching a high-altitude weather balloon on Saturday August 23rd, weather and upper atmosphere conditions permitting. The launch will be 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). Stations beyond line-of-sight are encouraged to listen for the 20m beacon on the balloon (details below).
The launch site will be chosen based on winds aloft and target landing areas. Expect it to be in northern Collin or Denton counties.
We will have a special event QSL card if you receive images/tracking data from the balloon or make contact through the onboard repeater. See https://k5rwk.org/balloons on launch day to submit for a QSL card or Worked All Payloads (“WAP”) award.
Flight goals:
- Finally capture some 360° camera footage from launch to burst
- Test 20m HF 50-baud Horus Binary v2 beacon on 14.070MHz @ 10mW with dipole antenna – what does the propagation look like beyond the radio horizon? (RX is easy, just feed sideband audio to your PC. Details at https://github.com/projecthorus/horusdemodlib/wiki#how-do-i-receive-it)
- Fly a Geiger counter
- Measure pressure balloon pressure delta
- Prove data aggregator concept using Pi Pico W + BLE to Raspberry Pi (small sensors to Wenet payload)
Ways to participate from afar:
- Track the payloads at https://amateur.sondehub.org/ (look for K5RWK, K5UTD, K5PRK, and KE5GDB-Wenet)
- Receive SSTV pictures in real-time - 432.5 MHz / Robot 36
- Make contacts through the crossband repeater - 147.435MHz PL 67.0 uplink, 446.0 (no PL) downlink
- Decode our tracking payloads - “Horus Binary v2” on 432.6, 432.7, and 432.9 MHz (decode using upper sideband and Horus GUI or https://horus.sondehub.org)
- Watch live images stream in via Wenet at https://ssdv.habhub.org/KE5GDB
Participate in person:
- Launch site TBD – will be north of DFW, likely in Collin or Denton county
- 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 an HT that can talk on 146.54 if chasing
- Chase crew should bring boots, long pants, plenty of bug spray, and lots of water! Be prepared for a bit of a hike and high temperatures!
I’ll be sending more details regularly to k5rwk@groups.io and parkballoon@k5prk.groups.io and a final update on Friday 8/22 to this group.
We hope to see you at the launch or hear you on the repeater!
73 de KE5GDB
73 Dallas N4DDM