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 Previous: ARRL-National Weather Service SKYWARN Recognition Day is December 4 |  Next: The K7RA Solar Update |
By Stan Horzepa, WA1LOU
Contributing Editor
November 26, 2004
This week, Surfin' goes to the air and visits Web pages that support and encourage the fine art of Amateur Radio ballooning.
Did you know that the first Macy's balloon, Felix the Cat, appeared in the parade in 1927? Back then, they released the balloons at the end of the parade and watched the balloons float away into thin air. If someone found a downed balloon and returned it to Macy's, they received a prize.
Sounds like an Amateur Radio balloon launch in which hams launch balloons with some kind of transmitter on board and watch them disappear into thin air. Then, they track the balloons and use the tracking information to recover the downed balloons. The prize is the achievement of actually finding the downed balloon and recover its components for future launches.
Ballooning is an interesting niche in ham radio requiring skills in a variety of areas including building and launching airworthy radio payloads, tracking a balloon via APRS (Automatic Position reporting System), weather data interpretation, etc., and finding a downed balloon using radio direction finding (RDF) techniques.
 W0RPK High Altitude Ballooning (HAB) Links Web page reveals the world of Amateur Radio ballooning. |
If you are interested in ham radio ballooning, a great place to find out more is the W0RPK High Altitude Ballooning (HAB) Links Web page. There you will find links to informative Web pages from groups that collectively cover the various aspects of successful ballooning programs.
Ralph Wallio, the W0RPK behind this Web page, writes, "With earlier flights by W8TGX in Cleveland, Ohio in 1964 and Finnish hams starting in 1967, our modern, much more active era of ham radio ballooning was started in the USA by Bill Brown, WB8ELK, with the first of his scores of successful flights in 1987. We now recognize Bill, with his early achievements and continuing energetic support to others, as our Father of Amateur Radio High Altitude Ballooning.
"Our collective efforts have now grown to several active programs with flights scheduled almost every weekend. A current list of launch announcements is maintained at the ARHAB Launch Announcements Web page and available via e-mail. (To subscribe, send e-mail to (Balloon_Sked-subscribe@yahoogroups.com with no subject or text required.)
"Numerous records for Amateur Radio high altitude ballooning are maintained at the W0RPK Records Web page. In these record tables we find the record for two-way contacts via balloon payload repeaters is now 647 miles. The record VHF/UHF telemetry downlink reception range is currently 479 miles. The record HF telemetry downlink reception range is currently 2437 miles."
The ballooning stories that you can access from W0RPK's Web pages provide fascinating reading and may motivate you to join the effort.
By the way, I did not pull the information about the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade out of thin air. I looked it up in the free encyclopedia of the Internet, Wikipedia.
Until next week, keep on surfin'.
Editor's note: Stan
Horzepa, WA1LOU, writes Surfin' on a weekly basis, rain or shine, hot air or
helium, VLF or UHF. To discuss neat stuff, especially if it's related to radio,
e-mail Stan.
| Previous: ARRL-National Weather Service SKYWARN Recognition Day is December 4 | Next: The K7RA Solar Update |
