[GCARC] Balloon launch on Sunday 9/15 at the Clubhouse

[Jon Pearce]

Once again Presidential travel cancelled a planned balloon launch scheduled at the Woodruff School on Saturday but we're going to try to launch two balloons at the Clubhouse on Sunday after the Temporary Flight Restrictions have expired (hopefully new ones won't be instated). This will be the first launch of the SBS superpressure balloon carrying a ZachTech transmitter (the two high-cost options) as well as an ORBS "party" balloon carrying the Traquito transmitter (both are the lower-cost options). The Traquito will also be transmitting WSPR packets on 10 meters, while the ZachTech will stay on the more common 20 meter frequency. This allows experimenting with a lighter-weight antenna and supporting line, and also a different band for telemetry.

Operations will start at the Clubhouse around 9 AM and it will probably take about an hour to inflate the balloons and test the radios, so we'll probably be releasing them around 10 AM. If you're interested come down and watch.

73 de Jon WB2MNF