[Alexandria Radio Club Reflector] A Bird? A Plane? No It's a Google Balloon Beaming the Internet - The New York Times

[Mike Rhodes]

Hi Don,

This is designed for more permanent operation, not just emergencies, but it
works for those too. The original plan was to have many of these
continuously flying around the globe as long as they have customers all over
the globe. The balloons float around 60,000+ feet above ground and can stay
up for 30+ days, travelling around the world multiple times.  They vary the
speed and direction of travel just by using the winds aloft and changing the
altitude of the balloon. 

You can see more about it at www.loon.com  including videos of the automatic
balloon launching contraption. 

I consulted on a small piece of Project Loon about 5-6 years ago. Pretty
incredible what Google can do when cost is not the first consideration. Glad
to see they are still working. 

73's
Mike


-----Original Message-----
From: alexandriaradioclub-bounces at mailman.qth.net
<alexandriaradioclub-bounces at mailman.qth.net> On Behalf Of Don (KI4D)
Sent: Wednesday, July 8, 2020 11:13 AM
To: alexandriaradioclub at mailman.qth.net
Subject: [Alexandria Radio Club Reflector] A Bird? A Plane? No, It's a
Google Balloon Beaming the Internet - The New York Times

This one is for those following trends in EMCOMM options.  From the article
it is difficult to guess how much time it takes to deploy a system like this
in an emergency, but I am sure it can't compete with ham radio deployment
times.

73 Don, KI4D

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/07/world/africa/google-loon-balloon-kenya.ht
ml 

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