High Altitude Balloons

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, 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.

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 the right column on how to build a RadioSonde Tracker.

RWK Balloon Events and Related Info

• How To Participate In The RWK Balloon Launch As A Mobile Tracker
  By Chip Coker KD4C There are several ways that you can participate in the September RWK Balloon Launch. If you want to participate as a mobile tracker (monitoring and chasing the balloon after it has launched), here’s what you will need: We suggest that you track/chase in teams, for several reasons. #1 – the workload…
  Read more
• General Meeting – September 2024 – High Altitude Balloon Launch
  Please join RWK on Monday Sept 9th for our General Meeting.  Have you heard that RWK is doing a High-Altitude Balloon Launch on Sept 21st?  Our September RWK Meeting will cover everything you need to know to participate in the Balloon Launch – either in person or from the comfort of your shack.  There will…
  Read more
• High-Altitude Weather Balloon Launch – Sept 21st
  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…
  Read more
• Receiving Radiosondes with Ham-centric Firmware – Horus Binary v2
  By Andrew Koenig KE5GDB In this article we will discuss how to receive transmissions from a radiosonde running the RS41ng firmware and transmitting the Horus Binary v2 protocol. Twice a day NOAA launches radiosondes into the upper atmosphere to make measurements that assist with weather prediction and modeling. NOAA requests that these atmospheric probes not…
  Read more
• Build Your Own Weather RadioSonde Tracker
  By Chip Coker KD4C For just a few $, you can build your own RadioSonde Tracking Receiver setup and participate in tracking the twice-daily (0000 and 1200 UTC) launches of radiosondes by NOAA. These radiosondes transmit at around 403 MHz with only 20 mW and yet you can receive them from a hundred or so…
  Read more

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.