By Andrew Koenig KE5GDB
The Richardson Wireless Klub (RWK) and Denton County ARA (DCARA) will be launching a high-altitude weather balloon on Saturday, September 21st. The launch site is to be determined and will be picked based on winds aloft and target landing areas as the launch date approaches. There are a number of ways to participate in this launch: build a payload, join the launch crew, assist with the chase and recovery of the payloads, and/or participate via radio from wherever.
To participate via radio you can receive the transmit-only beacons from the balloon payload string (position data, images, possibly more), or you can talk with hams across TX/OK/AR/LA with the DMR single-frequency repeater.
Position data tracking:
- Horus Binary v2 — KE5GDB — 432.630MHz — See https://github.com/projecthorus/horusdemodlib/wiki#how-do-i-receive-it
- APRS — W5ADC-11 — 144.39MHz
Image Transmissions:
- Wenet Digital Images — 431.5MHz — See https://github.com/projecthorus/wenet/wiki/Wenet-RX-Instructions-(Linux-using-Docker)
- SSTV — Robot 36 — 433.5MHz — Decode using MMSSTV or your favorite SSTV application
DMR Single Frequency Repeater:
- 441.0MHz Simplex / TG99 / CC1 / TS1 / Admit Criteria: Channel Free
To track the balloon via web interface, I suggest familiarizing yourself with SondeHub Amateur (https://amateur.sondehub.org/). All of our tracking data should be available via SondeHub Amateur, and it provides a much better workflow than the standard APRS tools for the purpose of balloon launches and recovery. If you have a project you’d like to test at altitude (RF project, camera, Arduino project), we have approximately 3.5kg of additional capacity. Send KE5GDB your proposed payload, and we’ll evaluate it for flight worthiness.
Payloads:
| Payload | Frequency | Weight | Owner |
| RS41 Radiosonde (RS41ng Firmware) | 432.630 MHz | 87g | KE5GDB |
| RS41 Radiosonde (OEM Firmware) | 404.700 MHz | 87g | KE5GDB |
| SSDV Transmitter | 431.5 Mhz 115200 baud | TBD | KE5GDB |
| DMR Single Frequency Repeater (Ch “Simplex 1“) | 441.0 MHz | 445g | KE5GDB |
| APRS Tracker — “W5ADC-11“ | 144.39 MHz | 690g | W5ADC |
| Insta360 ONE R — 360° Camera | Record Only | TBD | KE5GDB |
| Insta360 ONE R — 360° Camera | Record Only | TBD | W5ADC |
| ADS-B Skimmer | Record Only | TBD | KI1TEN K5SUS |
| APRS Tracker & Environmental Sensors | 144.39 MHz | 680g | KD5OUG W5LH |
| 6m Parrot Repeater | 52.525 MHz | 540g | WA0YVU |
| 20m WSPR Beacon | 300g | K5YR | |
| Total | 2829g* |
