Arbonet News

A question was posted to the Yahoo groups asking what a few of us wondered... With this weather system being so strong, "What if we did launch today?"

David Forbes responded with a simulation. The sum of which was captured by the author of the original question, which was simply "Wow!"  

I agree!

Here is a map and plot of "What if?"

Yes, Payload 1 would have gone far North East of Little Rock, Arkansas!

--K5NOT

We had suspicions that this weekend might not be favorable for a launch - (See my posting of March 21, 2009). Then as the weekend became closer, W5BL and I talked about the conditions looking ugly to worse than ugly on Thursday morning. By Thursday afternoon the postponement was an easy choice, this storm had teeth and would make for bad conditions from trying to launch to probably impossible to recover.

However, neither of us could have predicted the weather would bring 10ft snow drifts to Amarillo, inches of ice and snow as far south as Oklahoma City, Tulsa and even some snow showing up on local radars as far south as Sherman and McKinney! This weather system was of "Epic" strength, and not being able to fly a balloon was not much of a disappointment compared to what most of the nation was experiencing all around us. And strangely enough, it was 102 degrees in the South Padre Islands here in Texas!

This will be a storm and a launch date for the history books (at least if we had a history book at ARBONET!) :)

This morning it was breezy enough to put "White caps" the lake at W5BL's lake house, and cloud cover a bit too much for aviation comfort, but tomorrow would have been great! 

We will use this time to further refine the payloads, work out the bugs and get everything ready for April 11th, 2009.

73's

--K5NOT

DE W5BL Doug Loughmiller

QST

Forecasted weather conditions for the planned March 28th flight of ARBONET-3 are not favorable for launch. It is expected that a low pressure center will cover all of Arkansas Saturday and the associated weather at both the launch site and the recovery zone is forecasted to be below minimum standards for launch. It is expected that surface winds will be in the 20 to 25 MPH range at launch time. In addition, the weather over the recovery zone will be below the VFR minimums which are necessary to be able to safely deploy the chase planes into the area. Watching the forecast trends over the past 24 hours the situation has gone from bad to slightly worse. Therefore, as much as we all want to fly this weekend, we have decided to scrub the March 28th launch attempt.

Our plan has called for us to reschedule the flight for two weeks from this Saturday on April 11th. However, it has been pointed out that Sunday the 12th is Easter Sunday and many members of our team will be involved in family activities that weekend. I had overlooked this fact when I proposed this date originally. Therefore, I am going to ask for input from the team as to whether we hold our plans for the 11th or do we plan to launch on April the 4th one week from this weekend. There are constraints for this weekend as well for some people so I am asking that all of you drop me a response and let me know which date works best for you. If either weekend works please send me an email that says “either”.

I appreciate everyone’s understanding with the weather situation. Regardless of which weekend we decide to go, we will conduct a weekly net next Wednesday so please attempt to be on hand for that on-the-air meeting. As soon as I have the feedback from the team I will let everyone know which day we plan to fly. Expect to see something from me Friday evening at the latest.

73,

Doug Loughmiller, W5BL

• Scheduled Launch Date: Saturday, March 28th, 2009
• Scheduled Launch Time: 9:30 AM CDT
• Back-Up Weather Date: Saturday, April 11th, 2009
• Launch Site: Clarksville - Red River County Airport (33.5932 N, 95.0635 W)
• Flight Duration: Approximately 2 hours for Payloads 2,3,4 up to 5 hours for Payload 1
• Launch Net: K5FRC - 3.910MHz +/- 10KHz for QRM, Starting at 9:00AM CST until recover of all payloads

• 2M Voice Beacon: ID: K5FRC - 146.560MHz FM
• 2M APRS: ID: K5NOT-1.  144.390MHz. Special Call Sign applied for, this may change...

• 2M CW Homing Beacon ID: W5BL. Comprised of FM carrier with CW tone at 147.475MHz
• 2M APRS: W5BL-1 144.390MHz. Special Call Sign applied for, this may change...
• 70CM / 2M FM Cross-Band Repeater: K5FRC - 445.800MHz UP, 145.560MHz Down
• 20M CW Homing Beacon ID: K5RWK - 14.058MHz

Last minute updates are taking place on the Payloads. Payload 1 received a minor revision in the valve design, primarily to assure operation within the very cold environment encountered during ascent. The O-ring valve seats were designed out, (lessons learned from the space shuttle) and now the valve seats on a hard surface, similar to the valves in an automobile engine. This is now being tested for leaks, but so far looks like the update is what the doctor ordered.

The cross-band repeater is receiving a tuned cavity filter and it is hoped this will provide the isolation needed for excellent operation in the QRM environment encountered from various transmissions from nearby payloads and various signals received at that high altitudes. A new APRS system is being placed on board and will help with the position reporting and recovery efforts!

The ARBONET team now consists of many Ham Radio team members from all over the DFW and surrounding rural areas, spanning from Granbury to Fort Worth, Mesquite, Paris, Richarson, Bedford, Bonham, Clarksville and more. ARBONET offers many opportunities to enjoy our radio hobby!

At the time of this writing, a large weather system is slowly moving across the west with the jet stream coming south from Seattle down the California coast and then plowing north from Mexico up into the Great Lakes region. By launch time the resulting low system should be out of our area, but the southward portion of the jet stream may bring interesting weather by the weekend of the launch. If the jet stream stabilizes to our west, we should have good weather, but if it wanders, we could see less than ideal conditions for launch.

Barring weather related events which could postpone the flight in either hours or days, we are go for a March 28th launch. Our backup date is April 11, 2009.

--K5NOT

After an overwhelming amount of pressure and challenges in the career areas in 2008, with it's related demand of time required, 2008 did not leave much in the way of time and effort for ARBONET. Professionally, my part of the project at work just about wore me down, but is now looking very good and will start adding to the revenue stream of the small company I work for. Doug has been moving and shaking every opportunity he could find, and in a sales engineering / rep position, that has been tough! Smooth running in 2009 looks to be even more of a nemisis. The 2008 / 2009 economy obviously is throwing challenges to all of us, and America definitely is facing challenges many of us have not experienced in our lifetime.

Despite the past challenges and postponements (generally related to my time and my lack of efforts in ARBONET!) we feel fairly good about the March 28th flight date. The ARBONET Team is now focused on pulling off a fantastic flight for March. In the flight we will include most of the same payload functions, such as cross-band repeater, voice beacon and APRS. These are all being refined to overcome the disappointments from previous flights and to reflect what we have learned from those flights. We are counting on improved areal support and are lining up a few planes to help spot the payloads when they return to help ground crews get to the packages efficiently (ARBONET II was a bear!) And we have some high-tech tricks up our sleeves for the Voice Beacon Payload that we optimistically feel will take us to greater heights than ever before.

Our weather related fall-back date will be Aprill 11, 2009. Being spring in Texas, just about anything can happen, and we will need to capitalize on the date best provided by mother nature.

 --K5NOT

After a long dry spell between flights, we are getting the plan together for ARBONET III. Each of the payloads have been assessed and re-worked to provide better overall performance. The APRS system performed flawlessly last flight, and the Cross-Band Repeater is receiving some TLC to help it cope with the input / output challenges. The Voice Beacon is being completely scrapped and a new voice beacon with lighter weight components and more capability is being put in its place.

Stay tuned for more updates as we continue towards the goal of launching ARBONET III on November 1, 2008.

After hours and hours of work on this web site, my ISP notified me that the information that creates the web site (the stuff that goes on behind the scenes) was lost and can not be recovered... This means that if I update a single word on a single page, the whole site will fall apart and be lost forever... So, in the spirit of a persistent engineer, I have down-loaded the contents in hopes to re-create the site in some off-line software. Therefore, I have not posted updates, and when I do, you will likely notice some dramatic changes.

Stay tuned! I found one of those O-2-Its (Round to its) and will be getting the site back in order as soon as possible!

 --Michael K5NOT

The release of ARBONET 2 went off without many problems. With excellent help from the ground crew and a lot of work into the payloads, ARBONET 2 was headed for 89,000 feet.

We contacted the FAA authorities regarding the flight several weeks in advance, and worked with this fine group of professionals throughout the flight of ARBONET 2. Several things were learned here, such as the payload specialist should not be the FAA contact person, and a bigger window should be given to the FAA for possible launch times. A big win on this trip to the edge of space was the radar reflector for ARBONET 2 could be painted on the FAA radars!

A short time after liftoff, it was obvious the voice beacon GPS was locked up. Position and Altitude were not being sent correctly. The voice beacon program was working OK at first, but eventually became stuck in the CW ID loop. This was disappointing. However, some of the humorous code was working, such as "The GPS does not have a 3D fix, so I am not sure how high I am" and the scanner recorder caught "Excuse me, while I stop and ask for directions". The voice recorder will be looked at to find a cause for this GPS lock-up problem.

The 10 meter RWK beacon worked quite well. At first, the beacon was causing quite a bit of disturbance to nearby receivers, so the RWK crew reduced the power and off it flew. It was copied across several states and provided a new frontier for those looking for DX 10M signals!

Several QSOs could be heard through the cross-band repeater. Like working LEO satellites, the input was muted by the stronger input signals, (in satellite work, we call these stronger signals "alligators") making it more difficult for distant users to make contacts. We are just very happy it worked! We will be putting thought into improving this capability.

The APRS system worked flawlessly. A good copy could be made over the span of several states, and the GPS worked beyond the 60,000 foot level without a hitch. We were able to track ARBONET 2 with great success.  From what data we have, the balloon passed 89,000 feet.

Upon return, the telemetry from the APRS system indicated a very high descent rate. It became obvious the parachute was not functioning properly. After a handful of APRS updates, the package was on the ground. The last APRS packet copied from the Clarkesville Airport was from 5800 feet in altitude, so we were able to predict a possible site for the landing.

The recovery was a story that deserved its own web page. We met some great people in Southeast Oklahoma, and they were able to help turn this daunting recovery task into a great adventure with a great appreciation for people working together!

Overall, the ARBONET 2 mission was a great success, and a lot of fun for everyone!

See details of the recovery effort here:

http://arbonet.net/gpage12.html 

--K5NOT