A number of AREG members have decided to go camping in the Coorong this weekend! Look out for them on HF under their various callsigns.
If you want to pay them a visit, you can head south from Adelaide down Highway 1 and turn into the park at Parnka Point, MaGrath Flat.
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The Australia Day launch of the Southern Hemisphere Space Studies Program high altitude balloon payload under an AREG / Project Horus balloon was a great success! Launched from the Mt Barker High School, in the Adelaide Hills, it was an almost “text book” launch.
The AREG launch team were on site early in the morning to prepare for the event. Matt VK5ZM made sure very knot was tied correctly while Mark VK5QI, Scott VK5TST and Ben VK5BB prepared the AREG payloads. Andrew VK5AKH and Gary VK5FGRY helped set up the event “environs” with the marquee and bollards/bunting to guide the crowd that was expected. Grant VK5GR meanwhile recorded the event (and will be making a short launch video soon). The flight used a 1600g latex balloon and was “powered” by Helium. Two AREG payloads flew, being the primary RTTY telemetry on the 434MHz band and the telecommand LoRa package used to control early flight termination if the need arose.
[fve]https://vimeo.com/153665896[/fve]
The AREG crew were joined by the SHSSP participants and event organisers from the University of South Australia and International Space University a little later in the morning.
Balloon filling operations were supervised by Mark VK5QI who enlisted the help of several of the ISU students to control the balloon as it went through flight preparations.
The ISU payload included multiple 
sensors and a telemetry transmitter of it’s own. There were three cameras onboard, a video camera looking down and an IR camera looking down and a stills camera looking out. The payload telemetry consisted of a 9600bps VHF data feed that the Uni was testing on the 2m amateur band (for a future Cubesat mission). The controller for their payload was based on a Raspberry Pi. The end result was impressive considering the students had little more than a week from concept to realisation!
The launch was attended by visiting dignitaries from the Mt Barker Council including Mayor Ann Ferguson, various media reporters from several TV and radio networks and by more than 150 members of the public. It was presided over by John Connolly from NASA who is their ISU representative, as well as Associate Professor David Bruce from the University of South Australia.
The launch itself went faultlessly, with the surface winds dropping off at the last second to make it an easy gentle vertical ascent.
A major contribution to the success of the flight was the reception and relaying of tracking data from a large network of amateur radio stations across South Eastern Australia.
To enhance the sense of involvement by the amateur radio community, the AREG operated the main telemetry beacon under the special amateur radio callsign of AX5ARG-1, to mark the occasion of the launch taking place on Australia Day. This captured the imagination of many first time tracking stations. It was great to see over 35 stations, including many first time contributors adding to the successful collection of flight telemetry.
AREG will be offering a special commemorative QSL card to mark this flight to all stations who can show they receive the telemetry. If you managed to upload data to HabHub.org then you automatically qualify. However, if you copied telemetry but didn’t manage to get it into the HabHub system, please send an email with a screen shot or captured telemetry frame to vk5gr@wia.org.au for inclusion in the SWL QSL card logs.
Screenshot of tracking courtesy AX5RM (relayed from VKLogger Forum)
Stations who heard the balloon and reported via HabHub:
AX5APR, AX5DC, AX5DF, AX5DMC, AX5FAJH, AX5FJ, AX5FO, AX5FSCK, AX5KX, AX5RM, AX5RR, AX5ZAR, AX5ZEA, VK3OF, VK5AKK, VK5AO, vk5dgr, vk5esh, VK5EU, VK5FAAP, VK5FAJH, VK5FAo, VK5FJGM, VK5FO, VK5FPAW, vk5ftaz, vk5hs, VK5HSE, VK5KJP, VK5NEX, VK5QI-9, VK5RR, VK5TST, VK5ZM, VK5ZRL
AREG member Peter, VK5KX also made a major contribution establishing a remote telemetry command post high atop of the eastern rim of the Mt Lofty ranges. From there he was able to not only collect telemetry but also help the ground chase crews with liaison communications. Thanks Peter for your important contribution.
AREG’s good friends out at the Riverland Radio Club also made an impact not only with tracking but through publicity on ABC Riverland radio as well! Thanks Ivan VK5HS and the team!
Finally, probably the most significant task
considering all that had gone before, was to recover the payloads once they landed. Three tracking teams were out in the field lead by Matt VK5ZM/Grant VK5GR in car 1, Mark VK5QI/Gary VK5FGRY/David VK5DGR in car 2 and a team from ISU in car 3.
The chase was one where best laid plans changed at the last minute. By quirk of fate, the VK5ZM team didn’t actually obtain the wind predictions used to drive the tracking system until after the 1800Z Global Forecast System model was released, which gave us a surprise. Overnight, the jet stream had intensified, which resulted in the balloon traveling ~25km further down-range than planned. This changed our chase route quite substantially at the last minute and instead of targeting Bow Hill, the VK5ZM team headed for Karoonda. Meanwhile the VK5QI team which had departed earlier was already heading for Bow Hill.
In the end, the two AREG recovery vehicle teams rejoined each other out on the road and were on site before the balloon landed. However, due to local terrain and access restrictions, we did not catch sight of the parachute landing this time. The recovery teams had 3km of rough 4WD tracks and paddocks to negotiate and a further 2 km round trip hike through the thick Mallee using classic radio direction-finding techniques to navigate to the payload and then back to their vehicles.
[fve]https://vimeo.com/153663387[/fve]
The SHSSP and AREG teams were ecstatic over the success of the event and there was also very good media coverage. Stories were aired on ABC891 radio in Adelaide and on ABC Riverland (thanks to the Riverland Radio Club who were following the event) as well as on NWS9-TV Adelaide and the ABC-TV South Australia news. The SHSSP event organisers were thank-full to the AREG for their contribution to the success of their stratospheric balloon launch project.
Many thanks must also go to all amateur radio operators who tracked and uploaded the telemetry data as well as to the UK High Altitude Society who built, maintain and provide access to the habhub.org system for tracking balloon flights!
Just a short update to let everyone know that we have successfully recovered the payloads from a scrub landing. Photos, stories and more soon. People in Adelaide should watch the ABC TV news tonight to see the publicity!
Thanks to all of the Amateur Radio operators who helped collect telemetry for the flight too!
Project Horus has a long association with the UK High Altitude Society who provide an excellent platform for tracking on monitoring balloon flights through their habhub.org website. HabHub will again be a major focus for tomorrows flight.
The tracking system works most effectively when multiple stations receive the frames and relay them to the Internet. There, they can feed the flight prediction system which can in real time update the predicted landing zone for the balloon! So, to support this project, we are encouraging as many amateurs as possible to make an attempt to listen for and decode the telemetry and upload it to the Internet during the flight.
The telemetry for the flight will be broadcast on 434.450MHz using 100 bps RTTY (7N2) under the AX5ARG-1 callsign. The callsign itself for the telemetry beacon is significant as the AX prefix being used is something that Australian amateur radio operators can only use on Australia Day. The AREG will be publishing a special QSL card to confirm reception of the balloon telemetry. To qualify, you will need to ensure that you have your decoded telemetry frames uploaded to the habhub.org tracking page.
Information on decoding and uploading balloon telemetry using dl-fldigi can be found on the UKHAS Wiki Pages here or via the AREG Balloon tracking pages here
The main telemetry payload will also be transmitting an experimental 4-FSK modem signal, developed by David Rowe. These transmissions will occur in between the RTTY packets, and won’t be decoded by dl-fldigi. More information on these experiments can be found on David’s Blog.
Lift off is planned for ~9:30am on Tuesday 26th January! See you on the air!
DL-FLDigi Software decoding a balloon
[tminus t=”26-01-2016 09:30:00″ style=”carbonlite” /]
Preparations are well underway now for the launch of the Stratospheric Balloon flight being conducted as part of the Southern Hemisphere Space Studies Program for the International Space University.
The participants are already well advanced in constructing their payload and have it on test in readiness for the flight.
SHSSP Payload
Flight track prediction for Tuesday morning!
AREG and the Project Horus team are also working behind the scenes readying the chase teams and looking at the probable landing zones. The good news is that it looks to be (provided the weather holds) a textbook flight, landing in one of the teams preferred touchdown locations.
The AREG (VK5ARG) is conducting an experimental re-transmissions of the National and VK5 WIA News Service in the FreeDV-1600 mode.
The aim is to encourage amateur radio operators to come and try FreeDV HF Digital voice.
[table “” not found /]If you have FreeDV set up with your HF station why not tune in and see how you go? You can use one of the many open source software packages or perhaps using an SM1000 FreeDV modem to receive (and transmit FreeDV. You can visit the AREG HF Digital Voice project page for more information as well!
Callbacks are conducted after the broadcast 
providing an ideal opportunity for you to experiment further with FreeDV!
You can also log your FreeDV WIA Broadcast reception report here:
For more information about FreeDV please visit the www.freedv.org website or log onto Internet Relay Chat (IRC) on irc.freenode.net. (http://webchat.freenode.net/?channels=freedv) and connect to the #freedv channel.
Following on from the broadcast reports were coming in from around the country. Some could decode it successfully, some couldnt. As this is an experiment, we are interested in all results. The following are some of the feedback received:
Michael VK5ZEA in Port Lincoln (~230km away) posted these samples:
Andrew Scott VK3BA in Melbourne (~700km away) posted this sample:
Thanks to Andrew and Michael for posting samples of what they received online!
After a number of years of no packet radio 
activity in Adelaide (except for APRS), Grant VK5GR, a member of the Amateur Radio Experimenters Group, has commissioned a new AX.25 Packet Radio / Internet gateway on the 2m band for everyone to access. The system, built on a Linux platform, will allow amateur radio operators across much of the Adelaide metropolitan area to connect to a range of amateur networking services.
The system is operating on 147.575MHz @ 1200bps using AX.25. It currently offers:
BayCOM Serial AX.25 Modem
Note: It is rather experimental still so do not be surprised if it is offline at times or doesn’t quite work properly. There are some quirks in the system that are still being ironed out 🙂
There are also plans to open a 9600 baud port possibly on 70cm. More on this once Grant unpacks more of his ’90s equipment and blows the cobwebs out of it….
How do you get involved?
So, now is the time to dust off all your old Packet TNCs or BayCOM modems, plug them back into your 2m radio and have a go!
Typical AX.25 Packet Radio TNC
Software for driving TNCs and BayCOM equivalent modems is available online. TPK was one of the popular DOS based ones. There are Windows equivalents as well or you can just talk to your TNC (if thats what you are using) using any serial communications program.
There are also plans to get Net-44 routing 
properly established as well once new TCP/IP addresses can be registered. This is for the slightly more hard core among you who are interested in learning about TCP/IP networking. You can find many resources online describing how to take part in the ampr.org network.
If you would like to know more about this system, contact Grant VK5GR or come to an AREG meeting and chat to him about it. A talk is being planned at a future meeting to explian a little more about what has gone into building the node and how to access and use it’s services as well.
Mark VK5QI in conjunction with David VK5DGR undertook the Horus telemetry test flight today and were met with roaring success. Here is a short photo blog of the day’s events.
100g Totex Ceiling balloon, approx 500g of neck lift.
Launch!
Cutdown payload just below the balloon (cutdown capsule just above the cutdown payload, though it’s not really visible in this picture). Below that is the parachute, and far below that is the RTTY payload.
Tracking from Pt Lincoln!
Joel Stanley (VK5FJMS) was tracking from Winters Hill in Pt Lincoln, and was able to ‘ping’ the payload using a fairly modest antenna setup.
Horus Messenger!
Screenshot of the ‘Horus Messenger’ software in operation. This allows us to transmit text messages from the LoRa ‘ground stations’, which are then digi-peated by the balloon payload. You can see a brief chat between myself and Joel.
Cutdown time!
Do I really really want to cutdown? Yes, yes I do!
Landing Site Map
(With us heading back to a road that gets us closer to the landing site)
Landing Site
Lots of gum trees. The landowners (Alex and a nice lady who’s name I can’t remember) were very nice retired couple, who assisted us in getting to the landing site through a number of sheep-filled paddocks.
Quad-Bike Assist
One of the landowners driving down to open some gates and disable some electric fences for us.
David (VK5DGR) DFing
David Rowe doing some direction finding on the RTTY payload. Also sheep.
Recovered!
The payloads were found hanging from a gum-tree, about 2m above ground level.