EOSS Upcoming Flights
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04/12/2026 - 00:00 to 23:45
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10/31/2026 - 00:00 to 23:45
Recap of EOSS-88/89
Recap by Mike Manes, W5VSI
Hi Folks,
Great pair of flights! Couldn't have asked for better weather, thanks to Randy, N0AA. And great jobs by the launch and T&R teams, plus super job by Mike KJ0R doing FAA reporting even in midst of a GPS-loss crisis.
Which points out that in all these flights and years, EOSS has yet to experience a totally flawless flight -- yet. Here's what I found after Marty dropped the payloads off at my QTH Saturday afternoon:
EOSS-88:
The K0YUK-11 beacon package launched with just a tyrap securing the bottom to the payload line. Bad plan on my part. The tyrap appears to have taken an independent descent path, most likely during post-burst chaos, and the package slipped down to the knot where the bitter end of the 70 cm bazooka was secured. This forced that antenna into a U shape, and probably jammed a bunch of RF and noise into the GPS, resulting in the anomalous APRS reports. It worked fine in ascent, and it fired up fine back at my QTH and had a 3D fix in under 1.5 minutes. Fix: back to figure-8 knots, and I'm all ears for ideas on a faster means to snatch the bottom of a payload to the line; it gets real tedious putting a knot in just the right spot to keep the antenna straight w/o imposing stress on it when the line stretches under load.
AE0SS-11 also ran flawlessly in ascent, and the TNC was working fine throughout the flight, digi-ing those beacons that had EOSS as the first alias in the digi path; unfortunately, not all T&R teams did. As Murphy would have it, this guy's GPS also went bonkers post-burst, per the attached Loc Track Reg (LTR) dump from the TNC. This was particularly disturbing, since this beacon was one of two that operated perfectly on EOSS-87, and it caused a total loss of accurate I-gate data to the FAA and the T&R teams. I suspect that the antenna anomaly on K0YUK-11, mounted right above AE0SS-11, may have dumped some junk into BOTH GPS's. Fix: keep UHF emitters below or far above any GPS's.
The DF/cutter worked fine this time, and the lift line cut on command. The tape securing the speaker/mic plug to the DJ-C5 must have done the trick.
EOSS-89:
The parachute canopy and shroud lines got fouled with balloon shards, and over half the 3000 gm balloon weight in latex shards were removed from the 'chute. This despite a successful burn and separation of the lift line by the K0ANI-11 APRS/DF/cutter. The 'chute canopy was not tightly rolled on return, however, and it had made one pass thru the shroud lines; this required about an hour's worth of Rubik's Cube work on my deck. But I do appreciate the extra effort put in by the T&R team in getting most of the rubber separated. It's possible that this line pass-thru occurred in flight. In any event, a tight tie-off of the shroud lines to make 'em look like bicycle spokes at the spreader ring, and a canopy rolled tight like a bedroll prevents this pass thru during the trip back home. The good news is that we got the PVC nozzle back, along with Merle's dikes.
The K0ANI-11 APRS/DF/cutter being flight tested worked excellently throughout the flight, until about 20K' in decent, that is. Then it went bonkers, doing motor-boating bursts of key-down that got more staccato over the next several minutes until it went totally QRT. Larry K0ANI suspects a firmware anomaly, but I observed this same behavior on the the bench the day before, when the Li-ion battery got drained. This batt has an internal "smart charger" that cuts off output when the battery voltage drops below a certain value. The battery voltage read 7.30V during xmit at room temp back at my QTH, but Li-ion chemistry is not as tolerant of extreme cold as our normal LiSO2 cells. The thin fiberglass wall of this neat-looking payload provides little insulation, and Larry plans to add some thermal insulation before next next flight. Some thermal coupling between heat sources and the battery would also help. The only firmware change I'd recommend is adding a 1-sec delay after power-up before keying the PTT; most radios won't respond to a closed PTT on power up.
The old workhorse W0WYX crossband repeater performed solidly throughout the flight, and even repeated the (flawed) EOSS-88 K0YUK-11 APRS beacons from the ground and over to the I-gates. Due to its construction, this payload must fly only at the bottom of a flight string, however, and thus won't be usable on EOSS-90 U Ky Big Blue 3 in two weeks. Did anyone log the contacts made thru the repeater?