Habex launch 14 June 2014 |
Habex is a High Altitude Balloon carrying APRS equipment
as well as a parrot repeater on 437.900MHz. I had lots of fun on Saturday 14
June 2014 making contacts via the parrot repeater and tracing the balloon via
APRS.
I ended up making around 40 contacts ranging from Richards bay to
Kuruman, Kimberley and Durban. It was really great fun!
The equipment I
used was my trusty Yaesu FT-847 running 10-20w into a 5/8 antenna for 70cm. The
initial launch of the balloon was from Klerksdorp, about 120km away. I had to
wait till the balloon was about 3000m high before I could start to make
contacts. The rest of the morning was spent having fun making contacts further
and further away including contacts into Richards bay, Durban, Kimberley and
Kuruman.
Below you can see the FT-847 receiving a S7 signal from the
parrot repeater. At one stage the signals got up to S9+40db!
Yaesu FT-847
operating the 70cm parrot repeater.
Here you can see a screenshot while tracking the balloon via APRS, take note of how high the balloon is! (31756m)
Eventually the payload was split with the repeater cruising at around 28km
for a while before slowly descending. Another balloon with just APRS equipment
continued to climb and head west towards Swaziland trying to set a new altitude
record.
I am hoping there will be another Habex launch soon, it sure was
fun! Thanks to all those who worked hard to make this happen.
(c)2014 R Venter