[Vk5-wx-sonde] Not-So-High-Altitude Balloon Launch #2 - Saturday 12th September

[Mark Jessop]

Hi all,

Launch #2 for UofA is currently planned to take place this Saturday
Afternoon (12th September), with launch sometime between 1 and 2pm. This
will be the second launch of the Holographic Microscope payload which was
operated successfully on the first launch.

This launch is planned to be from the Buckland Park research site, near the
BOM weather radar. Unfortunately due to the nature of the site we can't
accommodate spectators. We expect the balloon to burst around 10km
altitude, however I will likely be terminating the flight (cutting the
balloon away) prior to this.

The flight path for this launch is somewhat difficult, with the landing
predicted to be to the East of Mannum (south of VK5CP's shack!). Liam
VK5LJG has kindly volunteered to visit the mannum bakery^W^W^W^W head out
to the landing site ahead of time to track the payload to the ground, while
the launch team race across the hills from the launch site.

As always (and more so in this case), the launch is highly dependent on
weather conditions, and the launch may be called off with short notice.

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
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