[TNham] UTARC UX-10 Launch Saturday Night, March 31, 2007

[Greg Williams]

UTARC UX-10 Launch Saturday Night, March 31, 2007

Who:  The University of Tennessee Amateur Radio Club (UTARC)
What:  High Altitude Balloon Launch
When: Saturday night, March 31, 2007
Where: Launch from Island Home Airport, Knoxville, Tennessee USA
Why: Test flight of onboard software and hardware enhancements and beta 
test of downlink software for receiving stations on the East Coast of 
the United States.  Preparation for future trans-oceanic attempt.
Contact: Dan Bowen, K2VOL - dbowen1(at)mac.com

QST:

The University of Tennessee Amateur Radio Club (UTARC) will be launching 
a high-altitude weather balloon on the evening of March 31, 2007.  Time 
TBA.
The codename of this flight will be called "Project Icarus".

UTARC will launch from the Island Home Airport (KDKX) with the following 
specifications:
    * Zero pressure balloon
    * 14.060 MHz RTTY transmitter (45.45 baud)
    * Solar panel
    * GPS
    * Measurements of temperature, current, and voltage

Not only will this be the first flight using zero pressure balloons, it 
will also utilize software that listeners across North America can 
download onto their computer and monitor the flight as it goes overnight 
across the Eastern United States.

We appeal to adventurous hams and shortwave listeners in the radio 
community to join our project as remote stations for Mission Control. 
Many HF operators and listeners will already have the appropriate 
station equipment setup: an internet connection and HF digital modes 
capability. Locations across North America east of the Mississippi would 
be most appreciated, but any station that might be interested in trying 
to receive the signal are welcome. We will provide special software that 
will link your radios to the UTARC Mission Control Server, allowing 
UTARC to receive telemetry as it goes out of range of the East Tennessee 
area to parts unknown.

This software is called the Distributed Tracking and Relay Client, or 
DTRC.  It is designed to allow you to help the UTARC Balloon program by 
becoming a remote telemetry receiver for balloon flights, connecting 
your radio to UTARC through the internet. The DTRC is a RTTY decoder 
program that automatically forwards received data to UTARC. The software 
will be made available the week before launch.

If you wish to assist UTARC and would like to try using the DTRC 
software, please send an email to dtrc (at) utarc.org.  Once the 
software is released for download, users will be notified via email.  

For more information on this flight and to check for the latest updates 
on the balloon launch, please visit the UTARC web site at 
http://balloon.utarc.org.