Catching up on Balloon Activity

It is a good time to catch up on balloon activity around here. There have been several points of progress, two technical and one with youth activities.

The youth activity happened up in Calaveras County at the local science fairs. They have a school level and a county level. The grand daughter (Mattie) of Michael Grcevich, KB6USJ, did a display on weather balloons. You may recall his balloon being up for over one year and Michael made a point of including kids in the activities. Mattie got “Best in Show” at her school and presented at the county fair.

She did not do an experiment so she was not eligible for an award at the county level but was complimented on her high quality display and presentation to the judges. We will be launching her beacon later this month and I hope it inspires her to do some science.

Activities at the SF-HAB group are also interesting. The thing that I am most excited about is the latest launch by Kazu, AG6NS. He is a first rate software guy and has enhanced his previous work by creating a Raspberry 2040 program that broadcasts APRS, WSPR and SSTV. I have seen one of the images. It is low resolution and given the limited ability to send down data, it is a superb piece of work. It is not yet released to the world but I certainly hope it will be soon. You can see where it is by putting into wsprnet AN6NS, 20 meters, and make sure the time window is not just 10 minutes. Try 24 hours and then shrink the time until it disappears so you will know when it went into the long night.