VE7NFR Pico-balloon #12 Launched July 23, 2024.
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July 23, 2024 Scott (VA7SL) and VE7NZ (Adrian) gave a presentation on pico and high-altitude ballooning to School District 36’s RF Communications Summer School. The class has 23 current and future ham radio operators aged 14-18 who are learning about radio communications throughout the month of July. The course is being taught by Adam VE7ZAL and John VE7TI. We concluded with a successful launch of a pico balloon, callsign VE7NFR, at 12:33pm PDT (1933 UTC) from the school field. The balloon is a 32” Orbs that was stretched with an aquarium air pump to 33” prior to being deflated and then filled with enough hydrogen to provide 5.5 grams of free lift. The payload weighted 15.0 grams, so total lift was 20.5 grams. The tracker is a U4B WSPR transmitter sending GPS coordinates (6 digit grid square), voltage, and temperature every ten minutes on 20m using a halfway dipole (magnet wire) and just 27 milliwatts. WSPR is amazing - even while the antenna was laid out on the grass we were being picked up in California. The main change in this flight is that we are using a balloon with no silver coating - it is clear polyethylene which will hopefully better manage the conductive and radiative aspects of the cold surroundings but also the heat from the Sun at 12,000 m above sea level. Our goal remains a full circumnavigation of the Earth! |
July 7, 2024 High Altitude Launch with APRS, Crossband Repeater, Camera and Stabilization.
Spotted by VE7LGP @ 5,685M
North Fraser ARC launched our most ambitious High Altitude Balloon to date, the payload carried an improved crossband repeater, APRS position locating, a camera and a new stabilization system to arrest spin for the camera.
The good news is the stabilization system worked amazing from launch and the several minutes afterwards that ground observers could still see it. The balloon was even spotted and photographed over Mission B.C. by VE7LGP at about 4,000M and the stabilizers were looking great at that time as well.
Also the radios worked very well in the new configuration, QSO's were made from as far North as Quesnel B.C. , South to Metro Seattle and Puget Sound, West to Vancouver Island and all throughout the Southern Interior of B.C. The Net Control, courtesy of Coquitlam ARC and specifically Richard VA7RLW, kept things civilized and made sure that everyone heard got in the log, for as long as he could hear it, then VE7NZ took over with a pen and sheet of paper thrown at him in his car for the last few minutes before Loss of Signal. A total of 86 Call signs were logged, outstanding! We equate this success to an antenna designed by Thomas VE7TOA that really pushed the signal lobe out towards the horizon and Adrian VE7NZ doing a great job on the radio crossbanding.
The first failure was an old chestnut that has plagued us for all three HAB launches, the APRS failed at 7,000M. Although we used extreme cold rated alkaline batteries, that have been successfully flight tested by others, we believe they failed at about -40C inside the payload. Counter-intuitively the Lithium Ion batteries in the radios worked flawlessly at altitude and we believe this is because of the heat generated from transmitting. In the future we are considering consolidating all power requirements on the Li Ion battery to attempt to avoid this failure.
The second failure was recovery, unfortunately we live in a challenging area for recovery and this launch proved that. The expected recovery area was farmland in Sumas Prairie, Abbotsford B.C., it is thought that the balloon was slightly under filled which would have caused a higher altitude then desired. With less gas the balloon would have had to go higher to achieve the burst diameter. The balloon may have risen as high as 35km, we think the balloon did follow the predicted course but continued on over into America and fell into the mountains, possibly a valley where it ceased to be heard immediately. Our US chase team did a great job of searching in the area as best could be expected but did not hear any signals to focus upon.
Because we did not recover the balloon, we did not recover the camera which was impeccably nested in a 3D printed housing that was bolted with plates into a custom made styrofoam box by David VE7KZ. We are working on having a live video feed via a wide AFSK transmission on our next flight. which could be towards the end of Summer 2024 Late August - Early September. As always, we here at the Balloonex Department of North Fraser ARC fail forward! Until next time.
Scott VA7SL
The good news is the stabilization system worked amazing from launch and the several minutes afterwards that ground observers could still see it. The balloon was even spotted and photographed over Mission B.C. by VE7LGP at about 4,000M and the stabilizers were looking great at that time as well.
Also the radios worked very well in the new configuration, QSO's were made from as far North as Quesnel B.C. , South to Metro Seattle and Puget Sound, West to Vancouver Island and all throughout the Southern Interior of B.C. The Net Control, courtesy of Coquitlam ARC and specifically Richard VA7RLW, kept things civilized and made sure that everyone heard got in the log, for as long as he could hear it, then VE7NZ took over with a pen and sheet of paper thrown at him in his car for the last few minutes before Loss of Signal. A total of 86 Call signs were logged, outstanding! We equate this success to an antenna designed by Thomas VE7TOA that really pushed the signal lobe out towards the horizon and Adrian VE7NZ doing a great job on the radio crossbanding.
The first failure was an old chestnut that has plagued us for all three HAB launches, the APRS failed at 7,000M. Although we used extreme cold rated alkaline batteries, that have been successfully flight tested by others, we believe they failed at about -40C inside the payload. Counter-intuitively the Lithium Ion batteries in the radios worked flawlessly at altitude and we believe this is because of the heat generated from transmitting. In the future we are considering consolidating all power requirements on the Li Ion battery to attempt to avoid this failure.
The second failure was recovery, unfortunately we live in a challenging area for recovery and this launch proved that. The expected recovery area was farmland in Sumas Prairie, Abbotsford B.C., it is thought that the balloon was slightly under filled which would have caused a higher altitude then desired. With less gas the balloon would have had to go higher to achieve the burst diameter. The balloon may have risen as high as 35km, we think the balloon did follow the predicted course but continued on over into America and fell into the mountains, possibly a valley where it ceased to be heard immediately. Our US chase team did a great job of searching in the area as best could be expected but did not hear any signals to focus upon.
Because we did not recover the balloon, we did not recover the camera which was impeccably nested in a 3D printed housing that was bolted with plates into a custom made styrofoam box by David VE7KZ. We are working on having a live video feed via a wide AFSK transmission on our next flight. which could be towards the end of Summer 2024 Late August - Early September. As always, we here at the Balloonex Department of North Fraser ARC fail forward! Until next time.
Scott VA7SL
VE7NFR June 21, 2024 - Summer Solstice Launch
Pico-Balloon VE7NFR was launched from Maple Ridge B.C. June 21, 2024. It has achieved float at around 12,850M (42,000 ft). The goal is circumnavigation of the Earth and much like those rocket guys, we here at Balloonex chose to fail forward! Yes VE7NFR is our 11th Pico with our furthest distance being Kazakhstan, Central Asia however the goal of rounding the globe has eluded us until now. We have done everything from crashing into the Rockies, bursting over Arizona, and falling into a river...
VE7NFR is a SAG 32" Orbs silver foil mylar, large sized party balloon with a WSPR tracker and a 20M dipole blasting out a blow torch of 27mW on the WSPR digital mode. Power is generously provided from a Fusion Reactor located 151,000,000 km from the two 4.8V solar panels soldered to the tracker. The Earth is in a non-synchronous equatorial orbit of the reactor therefore the tracker only transmits in daylight hours with a sun angle of better than 25 degrees above horizon. If the panels maintain the trigger voltage the transmitter beacons twice every 10 minutes: First beacon lasts two minutes and is call sign and grid square. The second beacon, which follows for two more minutes after the first, encodes a non-standard call sign, grid, and power measurement which are decoded to generate the last two digits of the six digit grid square, elevation, voltage, and ambient temperature.
VE7NFR is a SAG 32" Orbs silver foil mylar, large sized party balloon with a WSPR tracker and a 20M dipole blasting out a blow torch of 27mW on the WSPR digital mode. Power is generously provided from a Fusion Reactor located 151,000,000 km from the two 4.8V solar panels soldered to the tracker. The Earth is in a non-synchronous equatorial orbit of the reactor therefore the tracker only transmits in daylight hours with a sun angle of better than 25 degrees above horizon. If the panels maintain the trigger voltage the transmitter beacons twice every 10 minutes: First beacon lasts two minutes and is call sign and grid square. The second beacon, which follows for two more minutes after the first, encodes a non-standard call sign, grid, and power measurement which are decoded to generate the last two digits of the six digit grid square, elevation, voltage, and ambient temperature.
North Fraser High Altitude Balloon Feb 16 2024
Post Launch De-brief
Wow what a fun evening prepping, launching, chasing and then FINDING the payload. We really enjoyed listening to the many stations from all over the region work our balloon repeater. Interesting stations of note heard came from Quesnel, Tacoma, Seatlle, Puget Sound, various places on Vancouver Island and the Interior. Many small town in Washington State checked in that we have to look up.
The predicted path was almost identical to reality it seems, the balloon landed in Dominion Park in Surrey, B.C. about 300M from the prediction. Shockingly accurate, quite blew our minds in fact. Chase cars were just a couple blocks away in the Bear Creek Park area triangulating the radio when suddenly it went dead. Moments later a phone call was received from a man who had been out walking his dog in Dominion Park and watched the payload fall from the sky with most of the LED lights still on and flashing. VE7NZ & I raced to his QTH and recovered the radio & parachute. The radio had died because the man had opened the payload and turned the radio off. The chase teams then assembled at a local pub for dinner and well deserved libations.
Unfortunately due to a poor design choice the APRS board detached and likely fell into Hayward Lake near Mission, BC.
All in all a great success and so much fun, thank you for playing with us and we will do it again! Next up though will be the launch of at least 2 more pico-balloons and another high altitude in the Spring.
Post Launch De-brief
Wow what a fun evening prepping, launching, chasing and then FINDING the payload. We really enjoyed listening to the many stations from all over the region work our balloon repeater. Interesting stations of note heard came from Quesnel, Tacoma, Seatlle, Puget Sound, various places on Vancouver Island and the Interior. Many small town in Washington State checked in that we have to look up.
The predicted path was almost identical to reality it seems, the balloon landed in Dominion Park in Surrey, B.C. about 300M from the prediction. Shockingly accurate, quite blew our minds in fact. Chase cars were just a couple blocks away in the Bear Creek Park area triangulating the radio when suddenly it went dead. Moments later a phone call was received from a man who had been out walking his dog in Dominion Park and watched the payload fall from the sky with most of the LED lights still on and flashing. VE7NZ & I raced to his QTH and recovered the radio & parachute. The radio had died because the man had opened the payload and turned the radio off. The chase teams then assembled at a local pub for dinner and well deserved libations.
Unfortunately due to a poor design choice the APRS board detached and likely fell into Hayward Lake near Mission, BC.
All in all a great success and so much fun, thank you for playing with us and we will do it again! Next up though will be the launch of at least 2 more pico-balloons and another high altitude in the Spring.
"We were blessed to have an anonymous benefactor donate us enough money to fund our ship. We have named it the HMCS Bob Johnson Plumbing Supplies" - SCTV circa early 1980's
We would like to thank our anonymous benefactors who helped us raise over a $1000:
Greg VA7TD, Scott VE7CMN, Alfred VE7KH ,Peter VE7QRZ ,David VE7KZ ,Ken VA7WY , Wilf VE7OHM
Paul VE7KWA, Dave VE5UO ,Keith VE7KW ,Emil VE1EP, Antonio VE7AXI ,Tom KI6BL, Alex VA7HFD, Ron VE7IRR
Rob VE7FU, Steve VE7GPY, John VA7CFB, Scott VA7ZN, Steve VE7SDQ, Bill VE7VBI ,Simon VE7RIZ, Dave VA7ZAT
Richard VA7RLW, Dave VA7MD, Orin VE7BEE
We would like to thank our anonymous benefactors who helped us raise over a $1000:
Greg VA7TD, Scott VE7CMN, Alfred VE7KH ,Peter VE7QRZ ,David VE7KZ ,Ken VA7WY , Wilf VE7OHM
Paul VE7KWA, Dave VE5UO ,Keith VE7KW ,Emil VE1EP, Antonio VE7AXI ,Tom KI6BL, Alex VA7HFD, Ron VE7IRR
Rob VE7FU, Steve VE7GPY, John VA7CFB, Scott VA7ZN, Steve VE7SDQ, Bill VE7VBI ,Simon VE7RIZ, Dave VA7ZAT
Richard VA7RLW, Dave VA7MD, Orin VE7BEE
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North Fraser ARC launched our Remembrance Day 2023 Super High Altitude Balloon Launch with APRS & Cross-Band Repeater, launched at 9:00 AM Pacific, November 11th 2023.
The Super High Altitude balloon was weighted and filled with Hydrogen with an expectation of reaching 33,000 M and a flight to the Southern Interior of British Columbia. Super High Altitude balloons rise until they burst, this particular balloon had a burst diameter of a little over 8M. Prediction software which takes into consideration all factors, including winds at different elevations, suggested a landing on the East side of Okanagan Lake across from Peachland, British Columbia. The balloon was fitted with APRS as VE7NFR-11 and a TYT Handheld with crossband repeater functionality and launched right on time at 9AM with an expected flight time of about an hour and a half from launch to burst to ground fall via parachute. Despite days of testing and significant design choices the APRS failed anyway not long after launch over Harrison Lake however the balloon continued to fly and the repeater worked impeccably. The balloon continued to fly and, as per prediction, made its way towards the Okanagan. Our chase car comprised of Greg VA7TD, Lloyd VE7LGP & Gary VE7IFA headed for the expected landing area. After the balloon burst and landed safely with it's parachute, Rob VE7FU was reporting S9 signals in Peachland. The Chase car and a couple locals Doug VE7VZ & Gary VE7GCP very quickly narrowed down the location to the Crescent Beach area just North of Summerland, probably between the highway and the lake with a full scale reading with no antenna and just their thumb on the antenna jack. Unfortunately as the searchers narrowed it down to the last square kilometer or so the transmitter went silent as the batteries were finally spent. The new tribe then tried a drone and binocular search and they had the foresight to let a few land owners in the zone know about the payload and be on the lookout for it. We have some hope that the package may be recovered as it is in an inhabited, agricultural area but so far this has not happened. Hams from all over our region managed to work each other or just listen to the cross-band repeater in flight with notable stations being KI7SBE in Dalton Gardens, Idaho, N7RLV Vashon Island, Washington (SW of Seattle). Several Vancouver Island and Gulf island stations were heard as well. It was an easy QSO for anyone in the Lower Mainland Fraser Valley at launch and the same for the Lake Country Hams just before balloon burst. We are hoping to launch another balloon of this type in the New Year, the costs are mounting we are into the thousands of dollars but will continue. We have had many offers of help so we started a Go Fund Me for those that care to send us a little encouragement. |
20 Days Aloft - VA7SL-11
North Fraser ARC successfully launched pico-balloons VA7SL-11 & VE7NZ-11 (VE7NFR 3 & 4) April 13, 2023 from the Albion Sports Complex in Maple Ridge British Columbia, Canada. After a lengthy weather delay, resulting in a sleepless night waiting for enough Sun on the solar panels to wake up the trackers the following morning, the trackers sprung to life over Montana, USA and then went up North eventually across Hudson Bay and then down off the Coast of Labrador & Newfoundland into the Atlantic Ocean. After doing an entire circle tour of the North Atlantic bringing it back to Newfoundland the balloon finally crossed the ocean by making landfall in Scotland then crossing into Western Europe. Then it made it way southeast to Serbia, Hungary, Romania and finally a slow gentle tour of Turkey. After leaving Turkey it proceeded to the northwards just east of Crimea and then into war torn Ukraine regions of Donetsk and Luhansk where it went silent for about 24 hours crossing through a heavily GPS jammed zone. It woke up the next day northeast of Moscow and then did a slow tour of Siberia where on day 20 it appears to have lost altitude somewhere south of Novosibirsk Russia. It may have come down during the night in Kazakhstan or Kyrgyzstan.
Both pico-balloons were using a SBS-13 Super Pressure Balloon from Scientific Balloon Solutions filled with Hydrogen to approximately 8.5 grams of free lift. The payloads are Light APRS+ trackers from QRP Labs with SL operating on 20M WSPR and NZ operating on 10M WSPR. Both beaconed APRS on the appropriate frequency for where they were in the World. The support line was 8 stranded 12lbs fishing type with a swivel at the top to allow for spin.
There was a 3rd pico-balloon launched that day however a catastrophic failure shortened it's life to mere minutes. Rest in peace VA7FX-11 (VE7NFR-2).
North Fraser ARC successfully launched pico-balloons VA7SL-11 & VE7NZ-11 (VE7NFR 3 & 4) April 13, 2023 from the Albion Sports Complex in Maple Ridge British Columbia, Canada. After a lengthy weather delay, resulting in a sleepless night waiting for enough Sun on the solar panels to wake up the trackers the following morning, the trackers sprung to life over Montana, USA and then went up North eventually across Hudson Bay and then down off the Coast of Labrador & Newfoundland into the Atlantic Ocean. After doing an entire circle tour of the North Atlantic bringing it back to Newfoundland the balloon finally crossed the ocean by making landfall in Scotland then crossing into Western Europe. Then it made it way southeast to Serbia, Hungary, Romania and finally a slow gentle tour of Turkey. After leaving Turkey it proceeded to the northwards just east of Crimea and then into war torn Ukraine regions of Donetsk and Luhansk where it went silent for about 24 hours crossing through a heavily GPS jammed zone. It woke up the next day northeast of Moscow and then did a slow tour of Siberia where on day 20 it appears to have lost altitude somewhere south of Novosibirsk Russia. It may have come down during the night in Kazakhstan or Kyrgyzstan.
Both pico-balloons were using a SBS-13 Super Pressure Balloon from Scientific Balloon Solutions filled with Hydrogen to approximately 8.5 grams of free lift. The payloads are Light APRS+ trackers from QRP Labs with SL operating on 20M WSPR and NZ operating on 10M WSPR. Both beaconed APRS on the appropriate frequency for where they were in the World. The support line was 8 stranded 12lbs fishing type with a swivel at the top to allow for spin.
There was a 3rd pico-balloon launched that day however a catastrophic failure shortened it's life to mere minutes. Rest in peace VA7FX-11 (VE7NFR-2).
VE7NZ-11 (VE7NFR-4) Death Certificate issued May 2, 2023, 7 days after it was last heard from.
Balloon last beaconed as it left Romania and entered Ukraine just before it's sunset April 25, 2023 @ 13:47 UTC.
The balloon was on a direct night time fly over path towards Kyiv, Ukraine. The balloon never woke up, this war torn part of the World is subject to intense GPS jamming and the trackers we use require a GPS lock before they function so we had hoped that after a few days of travel it would pop back up again in Siberia but it has not.
Flight time was 11 days having crossed two continents and one ocean, tracking shows that it traveled 15,000 km.
All in all a great success.
Balloon last beaconed as it left Romania and entered Ukraine just before it's sunset April 25, 2023 @ 13:47 UTC.
The balloon was on a direct night time fly over path towards Kyiv, Ukraine. The balloon never woke up, this war torn part of the World is subject to intense GPS jamming and the trackers we use require a GPS lock before they function so we had hoped that after a few days of travel it would pop back up again in Siberia but it has not.
Flight time was 11 days having crossed two continents and one ocean, tracking shows that it traveled 15,000 km.
All in all a great success.
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Pico-Balloon VE7NFR-1 was launched February 28, 2023 and managed an amazing 48 hours aloft at 12,000M. This balloon cruised South from Vancouver, passed Seattle, Washington just to the East then went out to sea over Portland, Oregon. Over night it cruised down the West Coast at sea and went as far South as Ensenada Mexico then came inland and passed directly over downtown Tijuana Mexico. It then passed through the suburbs of San Diego, California out over the Salton Sea just East of Palm Springs and then crossed over the California-Arizona border. The tracker last beaconed over Golden Valley, Arizona where it was heading North East for the Rocky Mountains but did not survive the night. Our team of Engineers spent the next 7 days going over every piece of data to determine the most likely failure points and determined that it was probably the choice of the fishing line we used to attach the tracker to the balloon. The balloon was travelling in the jet stream at speeds in excess of 200 km/h and the wind shears over the Rockies most likely broke the line. Much was learned from VE7NFR-1 and we are undeterred.
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