Green, you should be able to work the payload
systems.
Red, is the border of the received signal. Red
appears jittery because it is depicted topographically. Thus, the red dots on
the eastern half of the map but well within the maximum distance show hilly
terrain behind (east) which reception is not possible.
This is a generic 95,000 ft ASL coverage map for
flights that depart from the vicinity of our launch site. Flight day coverage
may vary depending on upper air winds.
AE0SS - EOSS Ground Station, Windsor, CO (KB0TVJ the operator, I
think)
K0UT - Bill Beach, Ft. Collins, CO
KB0TVJ-3 - Russ Chadwick, Boulder, CO
KC0D-3 - Mark Patton, Foxfield, CO (new callsign)
KC0VJE-2 - Louis Perley, Erie, CO
For W0WYX
KB0TVJ-3 Russ Chadwick, Boulder, CO
KB0TVJ-4 Russ Chadwick, Boulder, CO
N0PSJ - Christopher Holmes, Arvada, CO
EOSS wishes to express our sincere appreciation to the stations above who iGated
the balloon APRS telemetry onto the internet. Did you know I publish predictions for i-gates? I keep a list of
everyone who has ever i-gated an EOSS balloon flight. You're all in the list so
if you're wondering when the balloon will pop up over your horizon, check out this page for future flights. Currently predictions are being made for 28 i-gates.
We are relying heavily on real time position information available on the net
to allow the FAA controllers to have up to the minute location data to assist
them in air traffic control.
Redundant stations for the balloon iGating provide excellent coverage. If you are able to iGate we invite you to join the Internet Gateway Team.
Contact me (webmaster@eoss.org)
to be put in touch with the coordinator. By joining
the team, you are giving peace of mind to the iGate coordinator for that flight.
He knows you'll be there and he can rely on you.
Naturally, anyone can iGate data onto the net and even if you aren't a member
of the team we will welcome your contribution to the internet based tracking
effort. If you callsign appears on the findu.com log, you'll be shown as a
contributing station as those above are.
Having
more than one station covering each APRS beacon means that should a station
drop out momentarily, the others can often maintain the data flow.
Thanks again guys! The FAA (and EOSS) are very grateful for your assistance
in this endeavor.
Future I-Gaters:
Check out the EOSS I-Gate page for information on
how to participate and why we need you.
Current I-Gate Stations:
Guys, the prediction program used to determine the track of the balloon prior
to flight can now output a prediction for the Rise, Closest Approach or maximum
elevation, and Set of
the balloon for each of your stations. I have posted a prediction page for
stations that I have been able to discover geographic coordinates. See the
I-Gate prediction page for an example. The page
will not be updated daily, however, it will be updated the evening prior to
flight for I-gate planning purposes.
I have often been asked by iGaters when they should expect to either start
receiving signals (AOS) or expect to see those signals disappear (LOS). This
prediction page should answer all those questions for you.
Experimental Systems
Colorado University flew 3 balloon sats
EOSS Systems Tests and Experiments
New LI chemistry batteries will be tested on RMRL xband repeater.
note: customers are welcome to submit detailed synopses of
their flights or web links to their own web sites.
The recorder wasn't started until the balloon had already ascended to
an altitude of around 28,000 feet.
The ascent phase of the RMRL Cross Band repeater is heavily edited to
remove repetitive CW ID traffic with no other meaningful communications.
I attempted to retain 100% of the voice traffic but might have
inadvertently edited out some traffic if it was way down in the noise.
The descent is NOT edited. However, my HT had the squelch set a bit
tight so there are numerous short audio gaps due to polarization (spin)
fading. But generally speaking this part of the audio should offer a 1:1
representation of the descent RF signal without VOX kicking in and
shortening the length of the recording. This may prove interesting and
valuable to folks who are trying to figure out when the xband repeater
separated from the main payload train.
Recovery Repeater Audio Traffic:
I did fiddle slightly with the recovery frequency audio recordings.
In reality, Nick Hanks, N0LP, gives nice summation of what systems
are on the flight string, then the first balloon is launched and escapes
without the payload train.
I edited out the launch sequence for balloon number one and placed it
in the first file above (1_eoss-126_repeater_release_snap.mp3).
It's only a minute or so long.
Then I MOVED Nick's spiel to just in front of the launch of the
second balloon. I mention it as you should know and also because Nick
himself refers to the fact that a second balloon launch is about to
happen. So if you are confused, that's what I did.
Other than this movement of Nick's overview, the rest of the audio is
sequentially accurate. This recorder DOES USE VOX and pauses recording
when any silent period lasts for more than 3 seconds. The timeline while
sequentially correct does not accurately represent the elapsed time.
Video
Short video of the first attempt at launch by Robert Slate, N0TQN
10 minute video from the onboard ATV system as
recorded at the ground station. The Burst occurs approximately 7 minutes
into this video.
