Martin Rothfield W6MRR

W6MRR-25 Away

Peter W6DEI and I launched a new fangled Yokohama balloon with a standard tracker. The balloon had been stretched to 100″ diameter. You can track it here

Picoballoon Launch Sunday 6/18 9 AM

We will be meeting by the Berkeley Marina – https://maps.app.goo.gl/erjqu1VxkXkdZtqg6 We will be sending the same tracker with a new Yokohama balloon. It will be sending as W6MRR on 20 m WSPR. If it lights up it will be W6MRR-25 on APRS.

New Tracker Underway

Kazu AG6NS ran out of space for more things like 2 m APRS and 20 m data over SSTV. I had tried a dual 2 m/20 m tracker before but gave up due to self interference. I was using a 6 g 0.5 W FM VHF transmitter module and it caused the ATMega1284 to lockContinue reading “New Tracker Underway”

Useful Pico ballooning Tips

Dave VE3KCL is the big dog of pico ballooning. He has done an huge number of fascinating experiments with amazing results (most of the time). Stretching Chinese Balloons Some notes about flying clear Chinese balloons with the U4B transmitter

Kazu AG6NS is Developing 2 m APRS

The mighty flight of K6RGG-13

We tried a new style balloon – a 32′ spherical balloon composed of two plastics. Robert K6RGG and I attempted to launch, but the prepared balloon got away. I had a micro-swivel between the balloon and the upper dipole. The top of the string came back with a knot so the cheap Chinese swivel must have failedContinue reading “The mighty flight of K6RGG-13”

W6MRR-24 away.

Several of our recent launch’s have been troubled with tracker problems. The issue seems to be fake microcontrollers that don’t operate well in cold temperatures. The symptom was the tracker worked great on the ground but intermittent in the air. Using spray “Super Cold” located the the problem. A new batch of microcontrollers were usedContinue reading “W6MRR-24 away.”

W6MRR-23: First Circumnavigation

Because of a flaky beacon, there have been just a few position reports. W6MRR-23 just phoned home over the Atlantic Ocean for a second time. The tracker problem seems to be due to counterfeit microcontrollers. I have another batch that should fix things.

Pico Balloon SSTV on 20 m – First Light

Last Sunday Kazu AG6NS and I tried putting up a tethered pico balloon up flying Kazu’s SSTV code on a ESP-32. It was sending “Martin-1” mode SSTV directly modulating a Si5351 clock generator chip. Due to slow but steady light winds it spent most of the time flying horizontally. We will have something ready toContinue reading “Pico Balloon SSTV on 20 m – First Light”

W6MRR-23 Lights Up for Second Day

After a series of failures to send after launching, there seems to be an intermittent problem with the same tracker. It is alternating on 20 and 40 m, with most of the 40 m transmission lost. We test on the ground prior to launch and never have problems. It may be temperature related problem dueContinue reading “W6MRR-23 Lights Up for Second Day”