When: 10 AM, August 8th, 2023
Where: Undisclosed hay field, Lodi, CA
Why: It’s FUN!
The Lodi Amateur Radio Club and the San Francisco High Altitude Balloon Club each launched radios into the stratosphere this morning. (see Audio Recording below)
Interview with master balloonists Dave Voit (WB6TOU) and Skip Chraft (N6NFB):
Over Denmark – August 15, 2023
Over North Pole – May 23rd, 2024
K6CMM, Colins balloon has done a surprising left turn from Russia. Normally the balloon is carried around the planet with the jet stream and on rare occasions it will head north. That just happened. As good luck goes, with the tilt of the earth, the sun is available for 24 hours so we got reports showing it actually went a bit past the 89th latitude. That puts the balloon within 60 miles or so of the axis of rotation of the earth.
Here is a snip that shows the path to the north. This site reports the angle of elevation of the sun from the balloon location. It varies between 18 and 24 degrees which is enough to power the beacon continuously. The elevation is reported to be around 42,000 feet and the board temperature is reported as 11C. The altitude is usually a bit higher when back in the usual latitude. The sun shines on the board so the air temperature would be lower.
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Lodi Amateur Radio Club 
We have three balloons in the air now. The first one was KB6USJ and was launched 90 days ago in conjunction with the Calaveras ham club and the Calaveras schools. It has wandered around and is close to making 3 circumnavigations. I am unable to paste the graphic here but at this moment it is circling for the third time in the Pacific between Alaska and Siberia and will probably make landfall for keeps in a day or two. It has wandered to the 80th parallel and actually was inside the auroal oval for a while
The second one is under my callsign and is doing a flight test for a beacon being developed by hams on the west coast. The beacon is targeted for STEM work. At present, the balloon is over Sweden. The third one is under the call NI6D and was launched just a few minutes after WB6TOU. The two are staying together.
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WB6TOU awakened after passing over Moscow with no transmissions. Probably gps blocking since they get attacks from Ukraine.nnNI6D has not checked in but with the antenna problem, probably will soon.
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KB6UAJ has now completed it’s 3 trip around the world.
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