[HoustonHam] [BLT] FW: LIFTOFF!!!

[Mark Bayern]

>>"One guy was pulling with no luck, I took over but the
small ropes were cutting into my hands a bit.. I wrapped the rope around a
few times and gave it a tug,   I fell back, Suzanne (kf5gwz) caught me
and she landed against michael (n5ptn).. the top two packages came down but
caught on a lower limb..  so they came down pretty gently...

That 'guy' was me. I'm not crazy, I had no gloves, and those thorns didn't
look like anything I needed to fall into!

Looking forward to the photos.

Mark  AD5SS




On Mon, Aug 22, 2011 at 10:59 AM, Eddie Runner <eddie at installer.com> wrote:

> at the recovery site, the 5 packages seemed to be laid pretty gently
> across the two trees,  if they came down hard I would have  expected them
> to be wedged down in the tree limbs a lot more..
>
> They looked like they were just laid there gently, and were pretty easy to
> pull down..
>
> I nearly fell on my butt pulling the highest packages
> down from the tree.. One guy was pulling with no luck, I took over but the
> small ropes were cutting into my hands a bit.. I wrapped the rope around a
> few times and gave it a tug,   I fell back, Suzanne (kf5gwz) caught me
> and she landed against michael (n5ptn).. the top two packages came down but
> caught on a lower limb..  so they came down pretty gently...
>
> I don't remember if it was the big package or the second package but one
> of them did hit the ground suddenly and crashed loudly as someone cut or
> loosened the rope.. A fall of 7 to 10 ft maybe..
>
> I remember as we packed the payloads in the back of my truck, one of the
> bigger payloads was open, maybe from the fall.. or maybe from the
> minor surgery at the landing point... I know someone disabled the beeper
> and something else in the package before we loaded the payloads for
> transport to the BBQ place, that may be why one of the packages was open..
>
> the last aprs data I have in my d710 memory for the package was
> 29.12.89
> 096.45.85
> which we confirmed to the actual trees via google maps after we
> got home.. ha ha
>
> which appears to be quite a ways from the last aprs.fi internet position.
> other side of a creek..
>
> As a chase team, we were pretty much always close enough to be getting
> the aprs data direct from the balloon when it came down..  It did come down
> a little faster than we expected it to.. We didn't hear anything from
> ground control through the balloon repeater as to when the balloon burst.
>
> All of the sudden we saw a 12000 alt and then a 9000 alt which is hard to
> read on the d710s display when you are sliding along dirt roads at a
> high rate of speed..
>
> we paralleled the balloons path on FM1300
> we then went north through speaks tx to take co rd 14 to try to get
> ahead of the balloon...
> Then we noticed the balloon coming down we were a couple miles north of it
> on co rd 14.
>
> there is a point where co rd 14 makes a jog south, that's where we expected
> to take the dirt road south to the balloon... but the road had a locked
> gate
> we were about a mile north of the balloon landing site there.
>
> we went west looking for a way in..
> we went south on co rd 1 expecting to come into the balloon from the west..
> we got in finally through an open gate, we were exactly west of the balloon
> but could only get to about a mile from it before we were stopped by a
> fence.
>
> We drove around a bit in that field trying to avoid the huge meadow muffins
> without success..
>
> We had to backtrack and go through an oilfield north of the package, we
> took tiny paths through the fields and woods trying not to spook the cattle
> that blocked the paths and wanted to run along side us...
>
> We weaved through and around to the north and came in to the balloon
> landing
> site
> by 4 wheeling across a small running stream, over a big dirt berm, and
> through a big dry pond (or small lake?) then up on another path and boom
> almost right to the balloon...
>
> When we got next to the balloon we knew we were close, Suzanne (kf5gwz)
> saw the white parachute through the woods.. it was a couple hundred feet
> off the road.
>
> Dwayne (kb5yta) our navigator, jumped out of the truck heading for the
> balloon
> before I stopped the truck... ha ha   talk about exciting..!!
>
> along the path we could see the other chase crew about a 1/4 mile ahead of
> us,
> they came in from the south but came to a locked gate which they had to
> stop and come the rest of the way on foot...
>
> Our chase team this year was
> Michael Lay (N5PTN) general IT and MESH
> Dwayne Jones (KB5YTA) navigator
> Suzanne Runner (KF5GWZ) great eyes first to sight balloon
> Eddie Runner (NU5K) driver
>
> Our 2006 4wd tahoe had
> Kenwood D710 with Avmap that I watched as driver most of the time, it got
> data directly from balloon
> Also Icom 2820 we used for communications with other chase team and a
> little
> crossband through
> the balloon for fun when it was up.
> Icom 7000 we listened in to the 6meter down..
>
> Dwayne had a laptop he used just for his maps.
> We had two more laptops with internet cards for aprs.fi tracking and an
> IPAD
> as well
> which we didn't hardly use...  We lost internet connectivity near the site
> so good thing
> we were close enough to get aprs direct from balloon...
>
> We had a kenwood th72 aprs handheld, and two Yaesu aprs handhelds as well.
>
> We also had two mesh routers in the truck one had a camera but I doubt if
> anyone tried to watch the chase team... ha ha
>
> Well what a blast we had, I cant wait till next year.
>
> A few photos are of the recovery are on the BVARC facebook page
>
> I have more photos and will try to find some space on the bvarc.orgwebsite
> later today.
>
> cant wait till next year,
> chasing the balloon is one of my favorite ham radio events ...
>
> Eddie Runner (NU5K)
>
>
>
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: blt-bounces at stevens.com [mailto:blt-bounces at stevens.com] On Behalf
> Of
> Mark Bayern
> Sent: Sunday, August 21, 2011 1:58 PM
> To: Amateur (Ham) Radio in Houston. TX and surrounding areas; Chris Boone;
> blt at stevens.com
> Cc: SETXHAM at yahoogroups.com; houstonham at yahoogroups.com; World Wide Six
> Meter Club; 6meter at yahoogroups.com; HoustonScan at yahoogroups.com
> Subject: Re: [BLT] [HoustonHam] FW: LIFTOFF!!!
>
> >> .we
> >> recovered the entire payloads.though they DID take a whack on the way
> >> down.in the last 20000 ft it took about 2 mins to go through that.about
> >> 120mph!! OUCH! I am putting together a story for next weeks Newsline
> with
>
> When we reached the recovery site the packages were strung out across
> two trees. I really doubt they took that much of a whack. By the time
> we had them out of the trees the 1/4" wooden dowel that was a mount
> for a 440MHz quarter wave was broken, but that has happened on the
> last three recoveries.
>
> The GPS data for the final stages of the descent shows a rate of
> descent of about 22mph.
>
> ~~~~
>
> This is from the last data we recorded from W5ACM-9 on the final descent:
>
> $GPGGA,172952,2912.6498,N,09644.5749,W,1,12,0.7,3058.2,M,-22.2,M,,*46
> $GPGGA,173202,2912.6563,N,09645.4241,W,1,12,0.7,1663.6,M,-22.2,M,,*49
> $GPGGA,173352,2912.8399,N,09645.7203,W,1,12,0.7,609.9,M,-22.2,M,,*77
>
> Using this data we can calculate the rate of descent for these four
> minutes (all times are UTC from the package's -9 GPS):
>
> Altitudes:
>
> @17:29:52         3058.2meters  10033.4feet
> @17:32:02               1663.6meters    5458.0feet
> @17:33:52         609.9meters   2001.0feet
>
> rate of descent is:
>
>  between 17:29 and 17:32, time 2mins 4seconds, distance 4574.4feet,
> rate 2213.4feet/min
>  between 17:32 and 17:33, time 1min 50seconds, disatnce 3457.0feet,
> rate 1885.6feet/min
>
>  avg rate of descent for this 4 minute period was 2008.1feet/min or
> 22.8 miles/hour
>
>
> Mark  AD5SS
>
>
>
>
> On Sat, Aug 20, 2011 at 11:00 PM, Chris Boone <Cboone at earthlink.net>
> wrote:
> >> -----Original Message-----
> >> Subject: Re: [50mhz] LIFTOFF!!!
> >>
> >> WENT GREAT!!! Drifted maybe 15 miles to the west and 90K height before
> >> coming down..What a ride!! The 6m signal was copied over 500miles
> >> away..the APRS was copied 1000miles to the west!!! The 28Mhz beacon was
> >> copied in GA for a brief while..There was 75+ folks there..and it all
> went
> >> smooth..the video from the camera on the bottom payload will be on the
> >> W5ACM.net site soon..I understand the video was AWESOME.we
> >> recovered the entire payloads.though they DID take a whack on the way
> >> down.in the last 20000 ft it took about 2 mins to go through that.about
> >> 120mph!! OUCH! I am putting together a story for next weeks Newsline
> with
> >> some the audio from the APRS systems (there were 3 on UHF alone) and
> >> some of the crossband audio.I net controlled the 2m to 6m remote
> >> base for a while.the audio was great on 6AM.it sounded like 125%
> Positive
> mod like AM
> >> broadcast stations use.which helped since the 6m signal was only 450mW!
> >> Chris
> >> WB5ITT
> >>
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