[South Florida DX Association] 10 MHz Amateur Radio balloon to Cross the Atlantic

[Bill Marx]

> 10 MHz Amateur Radio balloon to cross the Atlantic
> 
> Amateurs at the University of Tennessee Amateur Radio Club are
> launching a balloon with a beacon in the 10 MHz Amateur Band that may
> travel across the Atlantic during its 5-day mission.
> 
> The latest Icarus X mission UX-19, will hopefully launch by next
> weekend and its goal is to be the first Amateur Radio equiped helium
> balloon to cross the Atlantic.
> 
> The balloon payload will include a GPS unit and CPU that will regulate
> the balloon's altitude and send telemetry on 10.123 MHz in CW and RTTY
> formats.
> 
> The 10 MHz transmitter will run 3 watts output into a half wave dipole
> hung below the balloon.
> 
> The students need receiving stations to copy the telemetry data. They
> have developed a decoding program that anyone can download from the
> University of Tennessee web site which will relay the values back to
> the campus server.
> 
> All that is needed for the receiving station is a good antenna and a
> computer with a high speed internet connection. Audio from the
> receiver is feed into the sound card of the computer and Mtty will
> decode the values and give a nice visual status page of the flight
> data. Also the data will be sent to the University of Tennessee's
> server where it will be placed onto the club's web page for everyone
> to follow.
> 
> The flight has been dubbed 'The Spirit Of Knoxville' after Lindbergh's
> first trans-Atlantic flight.
> 
> The flight could be up to a five days long but the actual crossing
> should take only three days. The balloon will be carrying enough
> ballast and battery power for five days and nights. Check the UT Radio
> Club's web page at http://www.utarc.org/ for more technical details
> and a host of photos.
> 
> This site chronicles the last years worth of effort at developing the
> hardware and flight testing the different systems to produce an
> autonomous altitude control.
> 
> In addition to the 30m beacon there will also be an APRS beacon
> AA4UT-11 on 144.390 MHz FM.
> 
> University of Tennessee Amateur Radio Club
> http://www.utarc.org/
> 
> 
> If you go to their website and click on the Balloon Launch link right
> above the article you'll go to a page with a neat You Tube video of a
> previous launch.
> 
> 73,
> John - AG9D