This flight was a huge success, reading over 40km altitude! Thanks to all that were involved in the launch and received telemetry. A full writeup will be written in the next few days.

The re-attempt of the imagery launch intended for last weekend will now occur this weekend on Saturday the 7th of May, with a planned launch time of 10AM ACDT.

Update Friday 6th May: Launch is GO! With the ~25kph winds forecast for the launch site, we will likely be going with the larger balloon, to avoid having to perform accurate filling.

Weather predictions are still somewhat variable for Saturday, and the final GO / NO-GO decision will be made Friday evening, around 8PM. Check this post on Saturday morning for the final launch decision.

Depending on the weather conditions, we will be launching under either a 600g Hwoyee balloon, with an expected maximum altitude of 28km, or a 1600g Hwoyee balloon, with an expected maximum altitude of 38km(!). This will likely be decided on the morning of the launch based on wind conditions at the launch site. If we go with the larger balloon, the radio footprint of the launch will be approximately 1400km in diameter.

We will be launching from the Mt Barker High School Oval, with the launch team on-site from approximately 9:00AM. Visitors are welcome! Note that there are construction works around the entrance to the oval (off Stephenson Street), but the oval is still accessible.

Tracking of the flight will be available on the SondeHub Amateur Tracker at the following link: https://amateur.sondehub.org/#!mt=Mapnik&mz=9&qm=6h&mc=-34.91296,139.36432&f=HORUS-V2

Assuming the imagery payload works as intended (fingers crossed!), live imagery using the combined contributions of the ‘Wenet’ receiver stations will be available here: https://ssdv.habhub.org/VK5ARG

The predicted flight path (for 28km burst altitude) is currently as follows:

Primary Telemetry – 434.200 MHz

The primary tracking telemetry will be transmitted on 434.200 MHz using the Horus Binary 4FSK data mode. Amateurs in the Central SA region, and even those as far away as Melbourne are encouraged to get involved with the flight through receiving and uploading flight telemetry from our 70cm band tracking beacons. Every piece of telemetry data is valuable to the flight tracking and recovery teams so if you can help join the distributed receiver network to collect that data you will be making an important contribution to the project!

If you try receiving the telemetry from this flight, you’ll need a SSB-capable 70cm receiver (or a SDR), and the Horus-GUI telemetry decoder software. A brief guide on setting this up is available here: https://github.com/projecthorus/horusdemodlib/wiki/1.1-Horus-GUI-Reception-Guide-(Windows-Linux-OSX)

Note that you will need to use a ‘dial’ frequency of 434.199 MHz for the 4FSK signal to be centred in your receiver passband and hence be decodable.

Tracking Details – Imagery – 443.500 MHz

Imagery on this flight will be transmitted via the Wenet downlink system, which uses 115kbit/s Frequency-Shift-Keying to send HD snapshots. Reception of the Wenet imagery requires a Linux computer, a RTLSDR, and a 70cm antenna with some gain (a 5-element Yagi is usually enough).

Imagery received via the Wenet payload from a previous flight.

A guide on how to get set up to receive the Wenet signal is available here: https://github.com/projecthorus/wenet/wiki/Wenet-RX-Instructions-(Linux-using-Docker)

During the flight, the live imagery will be available at this link:

http://ssdv.habhub.org/

Due to adverse predicted weather conditions, the imagery flight planned for Sunday the 1st of May was replaced with a telemetry-only launch. A Vaisala RS41 radiosonde, re-flashed with ‘Horus Binary’ firmware was launched under a 200g Hwoyee balloon, with a planned target altitude of 27km. The aim of the flight was to give receivers in the Central South Australia area an opportunity to get set up to receive the flight telemetry using the ‘Horus-GUI’ software.

Launch team filling the balloon.

This launch was performed from the Mt Barker High School Oval, a common launch site used by the group. The site was a little breezy, which would have made filling a larger balloon a bit difficult, but with the small balloon it was no problem. Thanks to those that came along and helped out!

We launched a balloon this morning! Tracking available at https://t.co/EMT7XeUh4s Great to see so many stations receiving! pic.twitter.com/IiS1WF2uqc

— Mark Jessop – @vk5qi@cloudisland.nz (@vk5qi) May 1, 2022

In retrospect, the weather would have actually been pretty good for imagery, but this was difficult to tell based on the predictions in the preceding days. We’ll try to launch the imagery payload next weekend (hopefully on Saturday the 7th of May).

Many New Receivers!

As the balloon and payload ascended, it was great to see many receiver stations coming online to contribute telemetry. The new SondeHub-Amateur tracker shows the signal-to-noise ratio that each receivers is seeing, so it was interesting to watch how this varied for the different receiver stations. There were a few bugs encountered on the tracker which should be fixed before the next launch.

Horus 56 being received by 36 stations simultaneously!

Over the course of the flight we ended up seeing telemetry from 37 unique callsigns, including many new stations, and a few we haven’t seen in a while. We also saw stations from as far away as Swan Hill and Horsham in Victoria, and Mount Gambier in the South-East of South Australia!

After the launch, a few of the launch team headed up to a lookout near Mt Pleasant to track the flight (and get some lunch from the Mt Pleasant Bakery!). As this was just a telemetry payload (and we have plenty of those thanks to the Bureau of Meteorology!) there was no attempt to recover it.

The balloon burst just under 25km, a bit short of the expected 27km, and came to land to the east of Bowhill.

Overall flight path of Horus 56

Flight Telemetry Statistics

The following callsigns uploaded telemetry during this flight:

VK5QI, VK5ARG, VK5AKK, VK5BRL, VK5NTM, VK5TRM, VK5FATT, VK5KX, VK5LA, VK5MAD, VK5RM, VK5FJGM, VK5LJG, VK5APR, VK5HS, VK5GA, VK5EI, VK5ST, VK5PE, VK5GY, VK5LN, VK5CV, VK2DG, VK3MTV, VK5SWR, VK5FD, VK5CLD, VK3OF, VK5PJ, VK5DJ, VK5ATF, VK5DMC, VK5LO, VK3GP, VK5MAS, VK5NEX, VK5EME

Thanks for contributing to the flight tracking!

Next Launch – Imagery!

Weather permitting, we’ll have another attempt at the imagery launch next weekend, on either Saturday the 7th, or Sunday the 8th of May (noting Sunday is Mother’s Day – we’ll try and avoid this if possible!). We’ll post more about this as weather predictions become available.

The next AREG meeting will be held this coming Friday (18th March). As the clubrooms will be in use in preparation for the South Australian State Election, this meeting will an online-only Zoom meeting.

This month’s presentation will be on power monitoring & home automation, with a focus on locally hosted systems, without a reliance on 3rd-party ‘cloud’ services. Andy VK5AKH will present his findings from setting up such systems at his new home.

The presentation will commence at 7.45pm ACDT on Zoom (that is 7.15pm QST or 8.15pm AEDT for our interstate members), and will be followed by a general business meeting.

As this is an online-only meeting, we would like to invite visitors to participate via Zoom – please e-mail vk5arg@areg.org.au, and we’ll send you a Zoom link prior to the meeting.

See you online!

The next AREG meeting will be held this coming Friday (18th February) at our clubrooms at the Fulham Community Centre. Doors will open at 7.15pm.

This month’s presentation will be on basic Slow-Scan Television (SSTV) operation, by Grant VK5GR, who will introduce some of the simple software you can use at home to generate, send and receive slow scan TV on HF.

The talk will include a live demo on either 20 or 40m and will also introduce the new AREG SSTV Skimmer receiver now in operation at the club’s remote receive site. SSTV Contesting Japanese style will also get a mention!

The presentation will commence at 7.45pm ACDT and will also be streamed live for members on Zoom (that is 7.15pm QST or 8.15pm AEDT for our interstate members). The meeting will also be live-streamed on Youtube on Hayden VK7HH’s Ham Radio DX channel.

The presentation will be followed by a general business meeting. All members are encouraged to attend either in person at the hall or via Zoom if you are remote. The event at the call will be run in a COVID safe manner.

To find us in person, the meeting will be held at the Fulham Community Centre, Phelps Court, Fulham SA. See you there!

Happy New Year to all from AREG, and hopefully you are all staying safe!

Given the current COVID situation in South Australia and the high risk of an in-person meeting, the AREG committee has decided to run the January business meeting as an online-only Zoom meeting.

The presentations this month will be a series of ‘Lighting Talks’ (5 minutes hard limit!) from members, about what projects they have been doing over the holiday break. This could be anything from a (short) presentation on a technical topic, to a live video demonstration of a project they have been building!

The Zoom session will open at 7.30pm ACDT (8.00pm AEDT, 7.00pm QST), with presentations starting at 7.45pm ACDT, followed by a business meeting. Invites for the Zoom session will be sent out on the AREG mailing list closer towards the evening.

We hope that the COVID situation calms down in the coming months, allowing us to return to in-person meetings.

73, Mark VK5QI

Merry Christmas everyone from the Amateur Radio Experimenters Group!

With rising uncertainty surrounding COVID-19 after the South Australian borders opening, AREG has decided to hold December’s meeting virtually via Zoom. This will be a round-table session hosted by Matt VK5ZM. Bring your glass and share some cheer as we all start planning for 2022!

The Zoom session will open at 7.45pm ACDT (8.15pm AEDT, 7.15pm QST) and will last as long as the merriment prevails! Invites for the Zoom session will be sent out on the AREG mailing list closer towards the evening.

A short online business meeting will be held at 8.00pm ACDT to present a couple of motions that need membership endorsement for a new project AREG has been asked to support.

AREG will resume meeting in person in January, with events such as a BYO picnic and foot-based fox-hunt planned for the Sunday the 16th of January.

Stay safe everyone and we wish you a merry Christmas and a Happy New Year for 2022!