Amateur Radio Ballooning in the Bay Area
A community of interest for amateur radio and ballooning in all forms.
We will be presenting at Pacificon on October 16 from 1 to 1:50 pm.
We fly balloons when weather permits, please join us! We announce flights on our mailing list.
We chat about ballooning on the San Francisco Radio Club’s Slack channel, #high-altitude-balloon.
We had a successful launch of a Yokahma balloon using Kazu’s AG6NS new Raspberry Pi RP2040 based tracker. We launched from the Paragliding Meeting Spot in the Ed R. Levin Santa County Park on Saturday, May 13 at 9 am.
The balloon has been floating from 41 k to 43 k feet. This is the past week’s travels.
SF-HAB attended the May 5, 2023 edition of First Friday. Many were interested in tracking and collecting National Weather Service radiosondes launched twice daily from Oakland Airport.
Some related links:
Become a licensed amateur radio operator: ARRL
Become a amateur radio citizen scientist: HamSCI
Join SF-HAB June 17 for the Great Plains Super Launch
Track NWS radiosonde flights launched at Oakland Airport 4 pm & 4 am daily sondehub
Chase and collect NWS radiosondes: MySondy GO v2 , Google Play Store
Receive and report NWS radiosonde radio signals with a Rapsberry Pi and RTL-SDR: https://github.com/projecthorus/radiosonde_auto_rx
Learn about NWS Radiosondes
The recent shoot down of the large Chinese spy balloon is nothing new. There is a proud history of Balloon Busters. The F-22 that shot down the Chinese spy balloon had a radio callsign of “Frank01” in honor of Frank Luke WWI Medal of Honor winner.
AG6NS-11 has been waking up every morning with new position reports. Unfortunately, it is not reporting it’s altitude. Using NOAA HYSPLIT to work backwards, it appears to be at about 50,000 feet.
We are launching AG6NS-11, Saturday April 22 at 8:00 am at Cannery Park. We are test flying Kazu AG6NS’s new Raspberry Pi RP2040 based GPS 20 m/2 m beacon. It will be sending on 20 m WSPR only and will be transferred to APRS.fi as AG6NS-11. Please join us.
Track it here: APRS.fi
Tinkerfest is a one-day event that celebrates the creative, curious, and inventive spirit in all of us. Tinkerfest will bring together makers, artists, and tinkerers to showcase their work and invite attendees of all ages to join in on the DIY fun. Activities are geared towards a family audience, but we welcome all visitors to experiment and learn with guest speakers, demonstrations, and fun hands-on activities!
SF-HAB will have a table at TinkerFest 2023. We will fly several tethered balloons with fun payloads. Transmissions will be displayed & decoded along with the received audio. It should be fun for all!
Farley Flight Aerospace reverse engineers the balloon – fascinating reading
Updated based on leaked info
SF-HAB