Recap of EOSS-138/139

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EOSS-138/139 from the Tracker's Perspective

by Mike Pappas, W9CN

It was a dark and stormy night...

Well no it wasn't it, it was a nice morning and we met at the Mickey D's in Fort Morgan at O'early hours. W9CN was running late as it took extra time to program the 2 meter Sterling repeater frequency that was disseminated at the preflight net into all of the radios. Being behind KB0YRZ by many miles was unacceptable and the chase was on resulting in W9CN dusting KB0YRZ about 8 miles out from Ft. Morgan at "mach schnell" speeds.

The Mickey D's in Ft Morgan was the meeting spot for the T&R folks and Marty WA0GEH got the maps out and the latest prediction from N0KKZ and handed out the assignments. The Mickey D's had a Satan's chorus of multiple beeping Sonalerts (http://www.mallory-sonalert.com/) on various and assorted frying and cauterizing equipment that ran for more than 10 minutes and that made the T & R team want to "fix" them with a set of wire cutters. Eventually someone with hearing who worked at Mickey D's figured it out and silenced them before the wire cutter mayhem started.

Off the T & R teams went to their assigned locations which for some of them required passing through the "towns" of Akron, Otis and other wide spots on the road that didn't even rate having a bar. It was soon apparent that the payload was going to end up well short of where the crews were stationed. The town of Marino Colorado was the new location for the 138 payload and then it went south to the wide spot in the road AKA the "town" of Beta Colorado. Much high speed driving was done and N0IX, KC0RPS and W9CN witnessed the descent and landing.

The gray skies presented a very low contrast background and made spotting the payload very challenging during its decent. KC0RPS and N0IX went with the land owners representative to recover the 138 payload as W9CN, WA0GEH and KB0YRZ slogged through some very sloppy mud to recover 139. We were expecting 139 to come down near 138 which of course it didn't resulting in a very high speed dash down some very "iffy" roads from Beta to the other side of I-76 off from County Highway 61.

EOSS 139 dropped several miles east from County Highway 61 and KB0YRZ lead the way off road to its recovery. W9CN was able to see the silver mylar tape on one of the Explorer payloads from the top of a hill where he abandoned his Cadillac due to the roads being impassible and was able to point 'YRZ in the correct direction of where 139 had landed more than a mile away.

The lack of a separate simplex frequency for the 138 and 139 payload created serious issues once again and hampered the coordination and recovery of 139 and needs to be addressed before the next twofer flight. Additionally we need higher visibility payloads for all of our older eyes. The only reason W9CN was able to spot 139 at a mile range was due to the silver mylar foil on one of the Explorer payloads reflecting the sun. More silver mylar needs to be used as the "high visibility orange" we are currently using is insufficient at long distances and the low contrast that typically occurs once a payload is on the ground out east.

The T & R team met at Memories in Ft Morgan for the post recovery meal. When we arrived we were told that there weren't any tables available and there might be a group getting ready to leave and we offered to "help" them leave the restaurant sooner than later.. The management declined our generous offer and asked us to take a seat in the waiting room. They asked us for a name for the group and we gave them the name of the "Hungry" party!!

Lunch was nice and uneventful and the group broke up and made there way back to Denver about 1:30 PM.