[Vk5-wx-sonde] [HORUS] Not-So-High-Altitude Balloon Launch - 8th August

[Mark Jessop]

Hi all,

This weekend is looking to have much better [1] conditions for the UofA
balloon launch. This launch will be carrying a world-first laser holography
based ice-particle sensor development by a UofA PhD student, amongst other
atmospheric sensors.

This launch is *highly* dependent on weather, in the reverse sense to a
usual Project Horus launch. The desire is to spend as much time as possible
*within* cloud, so this launch will only be conducted if the weather is
overcast. The forecast for Saturday is looking good for this.

Once the payload has ascended above the cloud layers (confirmed via Wenet
imagery, expected to be ~13km altitude) the flight will be terminated and
the payloads recovered.

The actual launch time is still to be determined. Our launch windows are:
8AM to 11AM
2PM to 5PM
We will ideally be launching at the start of the window. The afternoon
launch window is preferred at this point.

Launch is from the UofA's Buckland Park research site, and so is
unfortunately a closed launch, however you can help out from home by
tracking the telemetry that will be transmitted on the 70cm band.

The current telemetry transmissions are expected:
- Horus Binary (4FSK) - 434.660 MHz USB
- Wenet Imagery - 443.5 MHz

If you haven't tracked telemetry from a balloon flight before, this is a
good one to get started with! (though note that the flight may be quite
short)
Information on decoding the Horus Binary telemetry is available here:
https://github.com/projecthorus/horusdemodlib/wiki#how-do-i-receive-it
Note that there has been a move to a new standalone user interface for
decoding, which should be somewhat simpler to setup for new users.
If you have a decoding setup working using FreeDV, it should still remain
compatible for some time, but note that newer versions of FreeDV will not
decode the Horus telemetry.

Decoding the Wenet imagery is a bit more involved, with a guide here:
https://github.com/projecthorus/wenet/wiki/Wenet-RX-Instructions-(Ubuntu-Debian)

If you have any issues getting the software going, please let me know via
e-mail ( vk5qi at rfhead.net ).

73
Mark VK5QI

[1] Better conditions for the experiment. It's still going to be raining,
which is going to make  launch 'interesting'.
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