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Dr. Michael Lustig, a professor at Cal, launched a balloon (NU6XB) with his students about the same time. We are are catching up.

We were exchanging pix of HABs bursting. Here are a few.

After more than 10 days in the air, W6MRR-21 stopped transmission over the Pacific. Circumnavigation or bust!

Altitude reporting isn’t working but here’s a Hysplit prediction based on expected altitude.

W6MRR-20 was approaching Iceland and stopped sending at sundown. It’s altitude was reporting between 1 W (9,000 m – 9,900 m) and 2 W (9900 m – 11,100 m). It must have developed a leak.

Once the balloon is released, you can only watch. If you are using WSPR, it is time to start your tracking software to get the wsprnet.org data and send it to APRS.fi. You can also go to http://lu7aa.org/wspr.asp and enter the data about your launch. If you are using APRS, it will show up onContinue reading “Tracking”

It is important to understand why these balloons do what they do. The latex balloons will rise until they burst. The balloon gets bigger and bigger with the expansion of the gas until the latex fails. They do not float. The superpressure balloon is not stretchy like latex. There is a little stretch but notContinue reading “Superpressure”

The rate at which the balloon rises is useful to know. It allows you to predict when and where the balloon will come to float. If you know when and where you will launch, there are websites that will tell you where you will come to float and which way you will be going. IfContinue reading “The Rate of Ascent”