[Lowfer] Beacon,

[Mike Staines]

I hate being pessimistic on such a wonderful thought experiment but,
putting aside the FCC rules for antenna length and the need/physics of
the counterpoise, I think the FAA rules regarding payload size would
prohibit an antenna of any significant size. While my last balloon
launch was in the 90's, I know the FAA rules for the total overall size
of the payload are still slightly byzantine. But the antenna IS part of
the payload and you might find, even for a thin wire, that the math (as
the FAA defines it) might eliminate any significant length.

But I will defer to your NSS expertise on this.

Perhaps a more educational experiment would be to chemically create an
ionization cloud at that height. I say "chemically" because I think that
bringing a short-pulse microwave plasma generator as the payload would
get expensive if you lost the balloon.
<insert smiley-face here>

Mike
WM1KE

On Thu, 2010-06-17 at 19:28 -0500, Joe wrote:
> Hello all,
> 
> I wonder,  and what do you all think?
> 
> I'm one of the original guys that do these high altitude balloon 
> flights.  Ya know 100,000 feet and higher even..
> 
> What would anyone think if we did a beacon flight at night time of 
> course,  and probably winter too to make it quiet.
> 
> But what does anyone think propagation would be like when an antenna 
> could finally get many many wavelengths above the ground  Like at 
> 100,000 feet?
> 
> Joe WB9SBD
> Near Space Sciences KB9KHO