Hams have been experimenting with using radios attached to high altitude balloons for many years. Raising the antenna increases the coverage area and raising to many tens of thousands of feet can provide coverage in many hundreds of miles. In addition to radio payloads, cameras, weather instruments and other sensors are popular payloads for high altitude balloons. Read on to find out more!
Local Area Radio High-Altitude Balloons
Occasionally, local clubs (including RWK) launch their own high-altitude balloons with various payloads (cameras, radios, other instruments). These local launches are a great way to get experience with the balloon launch and recovery process, or just to participate in communicating and tracking the balloon progress as it ascends and then descends.
In 2021, 2024, and 2025 RWK launched a balloon with (among other things) a panoramic camera and a DMR radio configured as a timeslot repeater. People were able to make QSOs from Houston to Oklahoma.
Want to Stay Up To Date?
For near real-time information about our High-Altitude Balloon activities, join our RWK Discord server and/or our Groups.io Balloons list. Want to support our HAB activities? Balloon launches aren’t cheap. Join RWK and help us out!
RWK Balloon Events and Related Info
- RWK Balloon Launch Announcement – Sunday July 6thThe Richardson Area Balloonatics (Richardson Wireless Klub) will be launching a high-altitude weather balloon from Celina TX on Sunday July 6th. This is a “flight of leftovers” launch with the goal of using ~125ft^3 (down from 300ft^3) of helium leftover from a UTD launch a few weeks ago. With less lift comes less payloads, but there should…
Read more - RWK May 31 2025 High-Altitude Balloon Launch Wrap-UpBy Chip Coker KD4C The Richardson Area Balloonatics successfully launched (and mostly successfully recovered) another High-Altitude Balloon (HAB) on May 31 2025. Launch location was Gainesville TX and the landing/recovery location was Celeste TX (about 9 miles north of Farmersville TX). Highest Altitude was 120,042 Feet – an new RWK record (around 22 miles high,…
Read more - RWK Balloon Launch Announcement – Saturday 5/31The Richardson Area Balloonatics will be planning to launch a high-altitude weather balloon on Saturday May 31, weather and upper atmosphere conditions permitting. The launch will be from Gainesville (details below), just north of the DFW metroplex, but near apogee at ~100,000ft we expect coverage to include most of Texas and Oklahoma, with some Arkansas…
Read more - May 3 RWK Balloon Launch Status Update – Launch PostponedBy Chip Coker KD4C Thursday Update: The decision has been made to postpone the balloon launch to Saturday 5/31. The driving factors of this decision are the excess amount of rain we have received in the past few days (very saturated ground here in NTX), the winds aloft pushing the predicted flight path pretty far…
Read more - How To Participate In The May 2025 RWK Balloon Launch From Your ShackBy Chip Coker KD4C There are several ways that you can participate in the May 2025 RWK Balloon Launch. If you want to participate from the comfort of your shack, here’s what you can do: Follow the launch on VHF 2M Radio and Watch the Balloon Progress You can listen to the launch status on…
Read more - Build a Ground Tracking Station for the May 2025 RWK Balloon LaunchBy Chip Coker KD4C After the success of last fall’s RWK High Altitude Balloon Launch, we’re planning to do it again this May 2025! Of high priority is tracking the balloon while it is in flight. Those that participated last fall know that the “horus” system developed by the high altitude balloon community (yes, there…
Read more - How To Program Your DMR Radio For The Balloon Single Frequency RepeaterOne of the recurring payloads on the Richardson-area balloon flights is a DMR single-frequency repeater (SFR). This payload is very effective as a voice repeater, and very simple to access if you have a DMR radio. In various forms, we have been flying DMR repeaters for almost 10 years. Near apogee, the DMR repeater will…
Read more - RWK Radio Balloon Launch Coming This May 2025By Chip Coker KD4C After the success of last fall’s RWK High Altitude Balloon Launch, we’re planning to do it again this May 2025! Why May? We have to wait for favorable air currents (so that the balloon doesn’t end up in Shreveport) and we expect that to be around the end of April or…
Read more - RWK Radio Sept 2024 Balloon Launch Wrap-Up – Saturday 9/21Update: The Balloon Launch is a wrap! We had a great crew of at least 46 people at the Aubrey Middle School launch site. The balloon was launched at 9:38am and reached a peak altitude of 111,315 feet (!) Josh N4NZ captured drone video of the launch: We had some spectacular images from the HD…
Read more - QRV Tech – September 2024 – How To Participate In The RWK Balloon Launch From Your ShackOur September 2024 QRV Tech program will be a discussion and demonstration of the various ways that you can participate in this weekend’s RWK High-Altitude Balloon Launch. Here’s a preview: How To Participate In The RWK Balloon Launch From Your Shack Meeting Recording – – – – – – – Session Resources How To Participate…
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High-Altitude RadioSondes
Did you know that NOAA launches many high-altitude balloons each day to measure the upper air conditions in order to forecast the weather, and that each of those balloons contains a small transmitter to transmit the atmospheric data back to the ground, and that these balloons can be easily recovered and repurposed? See below on how to build a RadioSonde Tracker.
Build Your Own RadioSonde Tracker
The current NOAA Radiosondes operate in the 403 MHz frequency range. You can use a cheap and simple 433 MHz LoRa receiver with custom firmware to receive and decode the balloon transmissions.
See this post for full instructions.
You can also build trackers using cheap RTL-SDR receivers and several other devices.
RadioSonde Tracking Website
Even if you don’t build your own tracker, you can watch the progress of the twice-daily sonde launches on sondehub.org
The site takes data uploaded by tracking receivers (including you if you built one above) and plots the path of the balloons and displays the weather data in near real time.
You can even chase the balloons to recover the transmitter (and what’s left of the balloon). NOAA says that they are free to grab and NOAA doesn’t want them back!
These transmitters can be repurposed for other functions in the 70 cm (430-450 MHz) amateur bands.
