[Vk5-wx-sonde] Fwd: [HORUS] Not-So-High-Altitude Balloon Launch - 8th August 11AM, now from Auburn

[Mark Jessop]

Hi all,

An update to this launch:

Currently the balloon flight path predictions from Buckland Park are not
looking safe for a launch. As such, we will be moving the launch to the
Auburn Town Oval, which is located here:
https://www.google.com.au/maps/place/34%C2%B001'43.6%22S+138%C2%B041'28.8%22E/@-34.028763,138.6891443,17z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m6!3m5!1s0x0:0x0!7e2!8m2!3d-34.0287625!4d138.6913334

The new launch time will be 11AM, and we are aiming to be on-site sometime
between 10 and 10:30AM. As this is a public site visitors are welcome, but
take careful note of the current weather forecast and dress accordingly!

Telemetry frequencies are un-changed from below, it will just be a bit more
difficult to receive from Adelaide.

73
Mark VK5QI



On Thu, Aug 6, 2020 at 9:32 AM Mark Jessop <vk5qi at rfhead.net> wrote:

> 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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