[Scan-DC] 401.015 MHz weather balloon signals -- anyone with decoding experience?

[Chris Smolinski]

I ended up writing my own app for decoding the LMS6 Radiosonde transmissions from Sterling.  Here's an example of a plot of the path, based on the location continuously transmitted (each radiosonde has a small GPS receiver): https://www.hfunderground.com/board/index.php/topic,62526.0.html

I'm a bit out of the way of their usual flight path, so I rarely get to receive anything close to the entire track.

You may find this site useful, it will generated a predicted path, based off weather models: https://predict.habhub.org

You'll need to create a custom location for the Sterling launch site, I use 38.9754 / -77.4577. 

Here's the prediction for this morning's launch: https://i.imgur.com/tB3NEWN.png

I just started picking up their transmission from the morning launch at 1109 UTC. 

Chris Smolinski, W3HFU
Black Cat Systems
Westminster, MD USA
https://www.blackcatsystems.com






> On Apr 19, 2021, at 9:41 AM, Andrew Clegg <andrew_w_clegg at hotmail.com> wrote:
> 
> Hi all,
> 
> I discovered the 401.015 MHz signal from the weather balloons (radiosondes) that the National Weather Service in Sterling sends up twice a day (usually starting around 7 AM and 7 PM, and lasting for a couple of hours or so). At least I presume Sterling is the source. The signal is pretty decent here in Arlington. You can even see the Doppler shift as the balloons hit various winds in the atmosphere.
> 
> There are several software packages available for decoding the radiosonde data (some free, some not). Apparently there are different formats of data from different radiosondes so you need the right software to match the radiosonde. In order to avoid a bunch of false starts, does anyone on the list have experience decoding the signals from the local radiosondes, and can make a recommendation on which software works best?
> 
> 73!
> Andy
> W4JE
> 
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